


things you know by heart

by moreraventhanothers



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam is Trying His Best, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canon Compliant before the Timeline Becomes Indecipherable, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, POV Second Person, Pining, Pre-Slash, Ronan Lynch is Bad at Feelings, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2018-10-17 13:42:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 42
Words: 37,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10595175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreraventhanothers/pseuds/moreraventhanothers
Summary: In the usual ones, he’s cold.  He’s disgusted.  He can’t look at you the same way again.  Sometimes he stops talking to you.  Other times he doesn’t, but every word out of his mouth is a knife, driving deep.  You’re not friends anymore.  You know you’ve ruined it because you couldn’t keep your fucking mouth shut.In the worst ones, you kiss him.A series of interrelated snippets chronicling Ronan's struggle with his feelings post-The Dream Thieves and onwards.





	1. wrong

**Author's Note:**

> These shortfics brought to you by overheard intolerant breakroom conversations, the desire to play around in Ronan's perspective during BLLB and inspiration to try something different. I never thought I would write something in second person, but here we are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: homophobic slur

_Sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell_  
_and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud.  
__Especially that, but I should have known._  

— Richard Siken

 

 **i.**  

“He would hate you if he knew.” 

A cold shiver skitters along your spine.  You don’t know the _why_ behind the voice’s insistence on haunting your nightmares, but it doesn’t change the _how_.

You don’t turn, gaze locked on Adam.  On the furrow between his brows, the hand stretched across the book in his lap.  The sun highlighting gold in his dusty hair.  Cabeswater has a peculiar way of making him look _more_.  Alive, whole, beautiful.  The effect has only amplified since he bargained himself to the ley line.

You know this.  You know it like you know Kavinsky’s dead.  That he chose to let his nightmare burn him from this life.  That you had not done the same.  You are here, fighting.  Struggling to accept the mess that’s left.  Trying to shut down the self-hatred that bubbles up any time you give it half a foothold.  Days like this always make it harder.

You have no illusions that Parrish would be pleased by any part of your… attentions.  But you like to hold close the delusion that you have it under control.  That you can shove it down when you need to, that you can keep it hidden.

The other option…  It isn’t an option at all.

You know you stare too long.  That you give too much away.  That you toe the wrong side of that dangerous line every day.  But it isn’t a problem.

You don’t lie.

You only lie to yourself.

Kavinsky chuckles knowingly.  “You think Daddy Hits-a-Lot raised his boy to be tolerant of fags?  You think he would even be able to look at you again?”

You avert your eyes, breath tiny in your lungs.  The answer to each of these questions is no, and you know that as well as you know the rest.

 


	2. purgatory

**ii.**

Surely you must have dreamt almost every scenario where this backfires by now.  You’d love to believe that, but your subconscious stays eager to prove you wrong.  You’re still treated to new layers of hell occasionally.  The rest is a greatest hits reel of misery and abject shame.

In the tamest ones, he just distances himself from you.  Gives you the wary side-eye like you’re going to try something.  Never quite trusts you again.

In the most embarrassing, he laughs like you’ve told him the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.  While your heart is shriveling in your chest, he wonders aloud how the hell you ever thought he might feel the same way.  The mockery is persistent.  Your feelings are a running joke.  He wounds you anew with every smirk.

In the usual ones, he’s cold.  He’s disgusted.  He can’t look at you the same way again.  Sometimes he stops talking to you.  Other times he doesn’t, but every word out of his mouth is a knife, driving deep.  You’re not friends anymore.  You know you’ve ruined it because you couldn’t keep your fucking mouth shut.

In the worst ones, you kiss him.  Sometimes it’s that you forgo your words, or you stumble over them, or he lets you continue without responding and you just go for it. 

He lets you reach for him.  He stops you as you’re leaning in.  He turns away.  He lets your lips touch before he moves.  He lets you finish but stands still as a statue.

His face, as pale as a ghost.  Confusion.  Amusement.  Revulsion.  Absolute horror.  Rage.

Shocked silence.  Clumsy excuses.  Savage words wielded with a surgical precision.

He stops you with a gentle hand.  Warningly holds you at bay.  Two hands, two shoulders, a forceful shove.  He slaps you.  Knocks you down.  Punches you in the face.  He threatens to kill you.

Every single possibility has two things in common—your utter humiliation and the knowledge that you’ve made a terrible mistake.

 


	3. treachery

**iii.**

Once, though, it goes right.  It goes _so_ damn right, you swear you wake with the taste of his lips on yours.  Then there’s the ragged shirt in your hand, undeniable proof of your transgression. 

Bone-deep shame settles in immediately.  It’s the worst you can remember.  More awful even than the freefall of your heart when you realized you’d trashed the Pig.  When you thought there was no way you could ever make it up to Gansey — that you might have finally committed an unforgivable sin, the one that’d cause him to turn his back on you.  You can’t betray Adam like this. 

He is your _friend_.  That’s all he is, and that’s all he’ll ever be.  Your undebatably heterosexual friend.  That was extremely interested in Blue.  That may still be.  He’s never once displayed any evidence of being anything but straight.  And even if he had, he can barely stand you half the time.  You infuriate him, you know you do.

You wish you could say you can’t imagine the look of disgust he would give you if he ever found out, but you can.  You have.  In a thousand different ways.  You know the exact angles of each variation.  Know intimately each and every place within you it breaks.

Evidence is destroyed.  Bargains are made.  Sleep is skipped.  The rare inappropriate fantasies are strictly faceless, featureless.  You promise to interrupt any dreams where Parrish manages to abide your feelings.  Where your subconscious brashly envisions some way he could ever possibly return them.  You’ll wake yourself before it gets to this point again.

You needn’t have worried.  After that night, Adam’s harsh words and acidic expressions burn straight through you like they always have.

 


	4. token

**iv.**

One night you wake with a plastic container fast in your grip like a lifeline.  You were dreaming of his hands, yet again.  Telling yourself this is a thing you should under no circumstances do has clearly had little effect.

The lotion inside smells like mist and moss, of forest and something you associate with him.  Indecision wars within you.

Your traitor eyes leave nothing about him unnoticed.  You’ve seen the way his hands chap in the cold—the combination of weather, manual labor, and questionable habits rendering them deeply cracked and raw. 

You know it would help him. 

You think he might even accept it, since it’s not coming from Gansey.  Adam doesn’t seem to consider your small kindnesses charity requiring unwavering resistance.

You’re just not sure if you can give it to him without revealing far too much.

_Hey, couldn’t help but notice how fucking dry your hands are, Parrish. ~~I definitely wasn’t staring.~~   _

_~~I absolutely do not dream about you all the time~~.  So anyway, here’s some dream lotion, asshole.  _

_Start taking better damn care of yourself._

_~~Strictly between friends, no homo~~ , let’s never speak of this again and kindly fuck off._

A ragged sigh escapes into the dark, loud enough to disturb Chainsaw.  You clutch the jar to your heart.

 


	5. confidant

**v.**

This game you’re running is a dangerous one.  It’s true that the Barns still feels more like your Dad’s former kingdom than your current domain.  But inviting Adam here alone is personal in a way that digs at your nerves like sandpaper on glass.  Showing him your dream work?  Even more so.  Like you’ve opened up your heart, and he’s walked right in. 

You’re treading so far over the line these days, it’s only a matter of time before you’re fully caught out.  A fear brews in your blood, that he’s noticing how frequently your eyes stray to him. 

You don’t know when he started picking up on it.  Just that you’ve seen him prickle under your inspection.  Not whether it’s discomfort, or simply awareness, crawling across his skin.

Either way, it’s far too fucking late to stop.  You couldn’t if you wanted to, at this point.  He hasn’t figured it out yet—you’re certain of that much.  He’s still talking to you.  You still have time, even if it’s borrowed.

As Adam questions you with wonder and curiosity and cautious regard in his eyes, your mouth opens and one of your deepest secrets falls out.  You haven’t told anyone about Matthew, not even Gansey.  You tell him, and you ask for his help a second time. 

Parrish is the smartest damn person you know.  Not only that, but cunning, ruthless when he needs to be.  If anyone can outmaneuver Greenmantle, he can.  And you can give him everything he needs to do it.

 


	6. scheme

**vi.**

It turns out to be more than you bargained for.  It’s still hard to believe things went downhill so fast. 

Only a couple hours before, and you’re sprawled out across the parking lot beside him.  Full of the heedless joy that seizes you when you get Adam to cut loose and do something reckless for no reason other than your suggestion. 

 _She doesn’t strike me as your type_.  He’s prodding an open wound.  Is there more to it than sarcasm?  Is there a chance he actually suspects?  The drive back leaves you too much time to consider the ramifications.  A thick blanket of anxiety engulfs you as the moments stretch on.  If he’s already guessed that much, it won’t take him long to figure out the rest. 

This could be the beginning of the end.  You wonder if you should be proactive for once in your life, start pushing him away.  Disengaging now to protect yourself the best you can.  Or if you should just let this run its collision course and pray it doesn’t end in flames.  Realistically, there’s only one choice you could ever make.

Inside the church, he looks at you—really looks at you—and your heart buckles in your chest. 

The plan he divulges, you hate it.  Hate everything about it.  You don’t lie, and this is the worst kind of lie imaginable.  But you asked him for help; he’s delivering you an airtight answer.  Cunning and ruthless, foul and despicable.  Fighting fire with fire.  It’s perfect and perfectly wrong.

When he senses you wavering, he hits you with a low blow.  Your brother’s potential suffering served up on a platter.  You reluctantly agree—what else can you do?

You ask him to leave.  He refuses.  The vicious need to swear rises.  Briefly, you entertain the idea of forcibly hauling him down the stairs.  Your insides are baring their teeth.  _No pressure_.

 


	7. consequence

**vii.**

When your eyes open, you know you’ve made a horrible mistake.  The stakes Parrish set were treacherously high and your bravado was a bluff.  The edges of the dream tear at you as soon as you arrive.  But you can’t retreat.  Already you’re afraid you’ll bring some unwanted atrocity back with you, and if you’re going to risk that, you are damn well going to fucking get what you came for. 

You can’t move fast enough.  The strain is unbearable.  Everything hurts and all you can think is that you _have_ to do this and you can’t fail and you can’t take too much because Adam is _right there_ and you _can’t_ endanger him. 

Disgust and terror are twin blades dredging your veins.  The night horrors are closing in.  _Come on, come on.  Move._   They’re too close.  _It’s only you_.  You know that, but in this moment it does you no good.  You’re feeling awfully monstrous right now; they fit right in. 

You fall to your knees.  Grab the envelope.  Then you hear the wasps.  _You’re going to get Adam killed._   Nausea overcomes you like a natural disaster.  Frantically, you stuff the pieces in.  Sheer panic only affords you a single resolution.  _Give them what they want_.  So you do.

As your eyes dance between Adam and your convulsing, whimpering double on the floor beside him, one thought owns you.  An awareness, a defense, a plea.  _You’ve never killed anyone before._ A wet choke of a gasp, and it’s no longer true.

Everything in you is collapsing.  You lash out because the anger has nowhere else to go.  If only you could convince yourself this was actually worth it.  He lashes back.  When he turns to leave like you asked, a wild part of you wishes he would call you on your bullshit and stay.  He doesn’t. 

 _Next time you can die alone_.  It’s something one of your disdainful dream-Adams would say.  Maybe you don’t need to worry about the inevitable confession of feelings.  Mortification and revulsion roil within you.  Maybe it won’t take even _that_ much for you to push him away.

You drag yourself from the church, alone, and wonder if this is what you deserve.

 


	8. hollow

**viii.**  

Subdued, you decide, is the word you’re looking for.  How Gansey would describe the Ronan that takes over for the next several days—if he hadn’t been too preoccupied to notice the difference.  You try not to be bitter about it.  Succeed because you just don’t have the energy.

Any emotion you’re loath to process escapes as anger.  You’re used to that.  But this is different.  Overstimulation and desensitization.  You’ve been forced to feel too much, too long.  Now you’re numb to it all.  Like how you eventually stop smelling roadkill.

You can get used to the decay if you’re down in it long enough.  Decomposition.  Rot.  A hand.  The parts it once belonged to.  The heavy drone of wasps.  Claws rending flesh.  The coppery tang of blood.  Your own voice, crying out in pathetic misery.

You draw in a deep breath.  Slowly exhale.  It seems all you do anymore is fend off nightmares in your waking hours.  You’re sure if you slept, you’d have to fight them then, too—but _that_ is something you’ve decidedly _not_ been doing.

You don’t start fights.  Any insults lack fire.  You don’t joke.  Keep to yourself as much as possible while your body goes through the motions without direction.  You’ve been hollowed from the inside out, and no one comments on your quelling.

Adam makes no moves to approach you, so you don’t bring up that night.

You manage to keep your eyes off him, a feat you never thought you’d accomplish.  It’s a bitter sort of victory.  You wonder whether you could ever sustain it.  Doing so would certainly solve several of your problems.

Though you have to really consider the alternative.  The flashes of that horrendous nightmare and resulting reality your mind has been looping in lieu of distraction.  Probably, you’d rather just be selfish.

When he does finally come to you, the only acknowledgment he gives is this:  you’ll need to involve the Gray Man in your plan’s execution.  You can see the logic—of course a hit man would know the right way to plant the pieces.  How to arrange the perverse evidence without suspicion of forgery. 

It just that you wish he’d stop asking you to do things that cut at the very fiber of your being.  It’s hurting you on a molecular level.  Manufacture the filthiest of lies.  Go to your father’s murderer for help.  He’s tearing you apart, piece by piece. 

But what do you really have to lose?  You’ve already killed yourself.  Still wonder if it qualifies as suicide or murder.  Either way, you buried a body.  Cleaned up the evidence. 

What’s one more terrible thing?

 


	9. numb

**ix.**  

You drink yourself to sleep that night, for the first time in weeks.  You wake—chest clenching, breath heaving, drowning in a tide of fear and despair—wishing you hadn’t.

 

 

 

 


	10. resolution

**x.**

Apparently, your reluctant agreement is the spark that gets you speaking again.  It’s not like you ever _meant_ to stop.  You just had no goddamn idea what to say. 

For fuck’s sake, what do you say when someone’s watched you die?  How do you go back to casual conversation after they’ve seen you materialize a host of bloody, despicable things?  You sacrificed more than you anticipated to protect him, without a moment’s hesitation.  _Next time you can die alone_.  Is there some protocol for reconciliation after he leaves you without another word, to a bury a corpse wearing your own fucking face?

It’s not that you’re angry with Adam.  _Jesus fuck_.  You can’t be.  You know damn well none of this is _his_ fault.  It’s what you asked for, just warped into something completely reprehensible.  That’s exactly like you, after all.  Leaping in headlong, no consideration for consequence.  No real intention of stopping before something awful happens.  And it did, in the end.  Now your mind’s ground zero and you’re left picking up the pieces.

So you wait for him to take the lead.  Hope he comes back around.  And finally he does.

When you answer, he looks at you with something you’d call relief if you didn’t know better.  Possibly you worried him.  That can’t be it, though.  Not when he made damn sure to let you know he didn’t care.  No—that’s not fucking fair, and you know it. 

 _Shit_.  You’re still pretty well unhinged.  Between the night of the church and the hellscape you descended to the last time you slept, your thoughts aren’t running reasonably.

You’re _friends_.  You asked him to do something, and he did it.  Spent considerable time and effort he couldn’t afford to spare in getting it done.  You can’t be picky about the circumstances. 

And you specifically told him to leave.  He took you at face value.  It’s not like you can expect Adam to magically know what you really want or need.  Hell, if he did, you would be in a serious heap of shit.

So you twist your mouth into a razor smirk you don’t really feel.  His jaw unclenches a little more in response.  You’ll make it through this.  You always do.

 


	11. magician

**xi.**

You’re outside the school when the unthinkable happens.  Running on so little sleep, your capacity for Cheng’s nonsense is sorely lacking.  Gansey’s fetching him coffee for reasons unknown, so he’s still here—blathering on about activism or some equally useless horseshit.  Parrish’s proximity and reproachful criticism are the only reasons you stay.  There’s entertainment to be found in watching him so thoroughly shut someone down.

A dangerous grin makes itself at home on your face.  Henry is fumbling.  You flex your hands, absentmindedly stretching the blisters and contemplating how much you enjoy seeing this cutting side of Adam in action.  A feeling—a… sound?—sours your growing contentment, derailing your thoughts.

The vague sense of wrongness hammers through you before you can place it.  A horrible, wrenching cacophony charges after it like an oncoming train.  Someone shouts.  Your gaze darts up, and time swells.  The tile.  The goddamn mother _fucking_ tile.  A literal ton of stone, scraping along the slats to tip over into the void.  Neither of you has the time to move.  Your heart slumps into a mess of useless wreckage in your chest.  Someone yells his name.  You’re too busy roaring _Cabeswater!_ across a silent connection that may well not exist this far out.  But he must have done the same.

Somehow, miraculously, the slate fractures on empty air before it ever reaches him.  Shatters into pieces, a harmless explosion of debris.  Leaves Adam standing in a spectacularly tidy circle, perfectly still, staring at nothing visible in this world.  _Fucking Magician._

Your desire for him is the sharpest it’s ever been.  It unfurls, white-hot and reckless, from the depths of your gut.  You can’t help but be glad for the faraway look in Adam’s eyes.  If he saw your face right now, naked vulnerability and want on clear display, hell would have to open up and take you with it.

And he keeps insisting he needs that favor from Glendower.  This… _this_ is why it personally offends you every time he implies it.  He doesn’t.  He could do any damn thing he wanted.

In some perfect world, his goal would include you pushing him up against the wall and shoving your tongue in his mouth—because that’s suddenly the only thing you can think of.  Shame slithers through you, hot on that thought’s heels.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Henry narrowing his at you and Adam in turn.  He looks between you like he’s trying to fit the pieces together.  A quick burst of panic punches through you, veering your pulse into disaster territory.  What does he suspect?  Is it the magic?  Your tragic feelings for Parrish?  _All of it?_

Flight instinct’s overwhelming every inch of you, but not even Henry’s scrutiny will make you leave before you see him okay.  The unsteady heave of Adam’s chest is the only movement he’s made so far.  Gansey’s arrival is incredibly well-timed.

As the students scatter toward their respective classrooms, you tear out of the iron gates.  The others are too busy giving a harried teacher their statements to stop your departure.  You didn’t drive here this morning, but that’s the least of your problems.  You can barely manage to sit through class on a good day.  To be trapped in that building after everything that just happened…  _No_.  The suffocating need to destroy something has twined itself through your veins.  And you’re going to indulge it.

 


	12. absent

**xii.**

You can’t believe someone so intelligent could achieve this level of absolute fucking idiocy.

As it has been for weeks, your tardiness is arranged to avoid Latin altogether.  When you show for second period, Gansey eyes you with ample confusion.  “Where’s Adam?” he asks, prompting anxiety to kick your heart into higher gear.

“He’s not here?”  It’s a stupid question.  His empty seat’s an obvious answer.

“I rather assumed he was with you.”  You don’t dignify _that_ with a response.  It doesn’t deserve one.

Something feral is threading your hostile stare, yet Gansey’s bland expression is fixed.  Frustration crashes through your ribcage, prickling against your organs.  “Something’s wrong,” you hiss.  Because it has to be.  Adam hasn’t missed a day of class since he escaped his father’s wanton fists.  “Come _on_ , Dick.”  Your imagination offers far too many unsavory scenarios for patience.

“I swear to God…  If that worthless shit-eating fuckstain touched him again, I’m putting him so far in the motherfucking ground, the devil won’t even have to look for him.”  Probably you should be more concerned about making death threats so soon after the church incident.  But the words turned over remain true.  There’s a great deal of room in your heart for the hatred of Robert Parrish.

“Calm down, Ronan.  Let’s check the office before making any undue assumptions.”

Outside the administration suite, Gansey gives you a _look_ you don’t appreciate.  You’re not a total dumbass; you know when to shut up and let him do the talking.  So tightly wound, anything leaving your mouth right now is destined to be a glorious swear.

It’s a herculean effort that keeps your fist out of the wall when Parrish’s whereabouts are revealed.  _Ten a.m._ “Gansey.”  It’s more plaintive than you’d like, but he still scolds you with a glance.  He instructed you to be quiet, and you didn’t obey his command to _heel_.  You’re too irritated to roll your eyes.  “The clock,” you add, punctuated with a pointed raise of your eyebrows.

Excuses, made.  Hallways, raced.  Buildings, fled.  Time’s a menace, a graceless mockery jeering _too late, too late, too late_.  Its passage is the enemy, and so is Gansey’s adherence to traffic laws.

“Sweet motherdicking shit, Gansey, would you fucking drive like you mean it?”  The speedometer _may_ twitch a millimeter in response.  “I should be driving.”  Gansey’s scornful expression unfairly suggests such an arrangement would get you both killed.  Like you would risk it when you need to be there for Adam.  “Jesus fuck,” you reply, slamming your palm into his right knee.  The Pig punches forward.  To your infinite satisfaction, he maintains the speed.

 


	13. verdict

**xiii.**

From there, every minute’s an incomprehensible blur.  Murky, sluggish, forgotten in the very next instant.  Thankfully, Gansey’s steadfast resolution to never publicly acknowledge a crisis has him smoothly taking over.  You catch your reflection in the mirrored surface of the elevator doors—you look like a train wreck.  That Gansey hasn’t called you on it yet is surprising.  Telling and strange.  As you straighten your shirt and reknot your tie less catastrophically, you think he may not be handling this so well after all.  That makes two of you.

He negotiates with the bailiff.  You stare vacantly at the closed door and hope for the best.  Concentrate on not voicing your thoughts.  Not getting thrown out of court for flagrant misconduct.  The door opens.  Gansey strides forward, quick to charm the judge.  Robert Parrish narrows his eyes in your direction.  It takes everything you have to keep from flipping him off and telling him what, precisely, he’s welcome to shove up his ass.  You settle for the shittiest glare you can muster as you take your seat.  Hope it conveys the _you’re going down, fuckbag_ you’re aiming for.

Curbing your temper while recounting that night to the judge has to be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done.  Recalling the crack of his skull on the railing, the sight of him sagging to the ground, the permanent damage…  It’s enough to drench you in a raw anger so bone-deep and bottomless you fear it’s all you’ll ever be able to feel again.  But you manage, because it’s Adam.  Because you would do anything for him.

You know what people see when they look at you—you’ve done a lot to make it that way.  Rough words, callous sneers…  They won’t do any good here, but your submission to authority will.  So you reign it all in.  Speak calmly, clearly, civilly.  Adam’s eyes meet yours.  He looks more elegant and unattainable than ever in his impeccable suit.  He stares at you like he doesn’t know who you are.  Or maybe like he doesn’t know who _he_ is.

Then it’s all over.  Gansey’s still chatting with the judge.  You loiter in the hall.  Adam looks shell-shocked.  You’re familiar with the feeling.  Suspect you were wearing the same face, those hazy days not long ago.  Fury bleeds through you at the outcome, blinking in and out, oscillating with heavy concern.  Hot.  Cold.  Hot.  Cold. 

You reach out, intending to gently cuff him on the shoulder.  You ache to wrap your arms around him, but he’d think you’ve lost your damn mind.  And you probably don’t need the memory of the touch, drawn to bitter life to haunt you.  Your hand retreats at the last possible moment.

“Hey Parrish.”  His head tilts up, but he’s still miles away.  Something in your chest slips sideways.  “You did the right thing.”

 


	14. chill

**xiv.**

“Eat more of this shit, Parrish.  I’m fucking stuffed.”  Judgment seeps from his pores.  He casts a glance at the half-full box on the floor.  Archly raises an eyebrow.  Goes back to his work before he speaks.

“Why’d you buy the gigantic pizza, Ronan, if you were gonna be the only one eating it?”  The lazy challenge in his voice implies he doesn’t really expect an answer.  At least not a good one.

“Maybe because I knew I wouldn’t be the fucking only one eating it, scrotum-breath,” you volunteer amiably.

His weighty sigh suggests he was done with you _ages_ ago.  Possibly that’s the truth of it.  Things have been… strange since he watched you die.  Strained.  More than a little uncomfortable.  You hate it.

An obstinate foot nudges his makeshift desk an inch to the left, jostling the books he’s carefully balanced on top.  He relents and reaches for a piece.  It’s a small victory.  You’re slowly pushing his limits.  Edging past his barriers.  You know damn well it’s irresponsible, but you’re selfish enough not to stop.

He’s back to ignoring you in no time at all.  Diligently occupied with his homework, the scratching of pencil on paper persistent.  You’re not sure why he asked you over to do _this_ , but you’re not complaining.  It feels like before.  And that’s all you really want.

You worry at the leather around your wrist, admiring the idle hand motions and scrunched faces that characterize Adam’s quiet determination.  He either doesn’t notice or doesn’t acknowledge the staring, so you don’t bother to hide it.

Both of you startle when Chainsaw lands across the open windowsill.  Picking some meat from the leftover pizza, you toss it at her, topping by topping.  You’re half-surprised when Parrish doesn’t complain about the noise.

Eventually, he stops writing, brow crinkled up in a way that’s doing something to your insides.  “Is this right?” he asks, stretching an arm in your direction.

You scoff.  “I’m gonna go with: (a) probably (b) how the fuck would I know (c) why the shit are you asking _me_ for help with your homework?”

He huffs out a breath.  “Shut up, asshole.  It’s Latin.”

A predatory smile slithers across your face.  “You told me my grammar was _abysmal_.”  Pronouncing it like a vulgarity, you’re stupidly pleased when Adam rolls his eyes.

“Shit, Ronan,” he says.  “Just because you treat Latin like…  Aglionby doesn’t appreciate you butchering it like a spoken language.”  He cuts off your smug response— _they don’t know how to fucking appreciate greatness, you mean_ —with an impatient rustle of paper.  “Just look.”

You hum thoughtfully.  “Eat another piece of pizza.”  If you can force-feed him, you will.  You know he never eats enough of his own volition.

“Oh my God.”  Adam flings the sheets toward you with an exasperated sigh, but he grabs another slice.  “Happy?”

Grinning, you pluck his homework from the floor.  “Ecstatic,” you reply with no small amount of sarcasm, a tone that’s alarmingly close to a lie.  Because here, with him…

“I honestly don’t know why I ever let you into my apartment,” he grumbles, mouth full.

It takes you a while to respond.  “Four should say _insipientis_.  On nineteen, it’s _inveniam_.  You said you wanted me here to talk about Greenmantle.  I’m still waiting.”

Something odd flickers across his face, quick as lightning.  Without context, you might think you’d seen a fraction of hurt.  He snatches his paper from your hands.  “Got somewhere better to be, Lynch?”  Everything you know about him tells you the words have to be a joke.

So why do you glean an edge of real defensiveness nestled within?  You don’t know what to make of it.  “I just want to get this the fuck over with,” you mutter.

Something in his expression hardens.  “Okay then.  Let’s get it over with.”

You’re not sure where, exactly, you’ve gone wrong.  But the sense that you have clings to you like a shadow, dogging you out of his apartment that night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone curious, the Latin is plucked from a couple proverbs:
> 
>   1. _cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare_ – any man can make a mistake; only a fool keeps making the same one
>   2. _aut viam inveniam aut faciam_ – I shall either find a way or make one
> 



	15. fallout

**xv.**

Most days slip by with nothing to mark them.  And then you have those irredeemable pieces of shit that bend the laws of nature just to prove a point.  Time and space conspiring—full to bursting with hours and hours’ worth of grade-A bullshit—to satisfy some twisted cruelty of fate.  Days like the Fourth of July.  Days like today.

It doesn’t even seem possible.  Was it really only this morning that you and Parrish were riding that high of sweet vindication?  Assured your blackmail against Greenmantle was going to work.  That everything you went through had been worth it after all.  Finally safe.

 _Safe_.  Hah.  What a fucking joke.  It’s no wonder the universe had to step in and prove you all wrong.  You got too goddamn cocky.  _Failure’s what you’re wearing these days_.

Persephone’s gone.

Persephone’s fucking gone.  And while you hadn’t formed any solid opinions on the woman, you know she’d been helping Adam navigate his relationship with Cabeswater and whatever it changed inside him.  That he’d seemed much more at ease with himself after her lessons.  Now he looks so damn lost.  The desire to do _something anything just fucking fix this_ is too large for your skin.  You’re useless.  You hate it.  _Faulty dreamer._

And you have absolutely no idea what in _fuck_ happened in that cave.  You realize you should be the last person to get spooked by anything supernatural.  That you’re being hypocritical, or superstitious.  But you don’t trust magic when it comes from outside yourself or Cabeswater.  The forest’s wild unpredictability was bad enough on its own.  This… 

Things feel bigger than before.  Worse, they feel _unfinished_.

You’re more anxious than ever about Gansey.  He may be the one that started this insane hunt for Glendower, but it’s putting him in the most danger.  Adam has Cabeswater.  Blue has her dark magic immunity.  Noah’s already fucking dead.  What does Gansey have to protect him?  Nothing.  You have to find a way to change that.  It’s starting to feel real fucking urgent. _You’ve got more passion than accuracy, don’t you?_

That night, you stay at St. Agnes.  You can only imagine how emotionally wrung out Parrish is.  Standing up to his father.  Losing Persephone.  What happened underground.  But the numb ambivalence he’s shrugged on is unnerving.  You’d almost rather he give over to rage or despair.  Anything but this blank _nothing_.  You can’t bear to leave him alone.

Despite the improbable fuckery of the day, there’s tranquility in this old routine.  You’re worried, yes, but you’ve missed crashing here.  It was familiar, back when you helped him move in, during the summer…  Before you started to fear your inability to lie was a land mine on the brink of detonation.  You slept better on his floor than anywhere else.

Here lately, you’ve spent most nights at the Barns, trying to dream.  Dealing with the aftermath of the more undesirable results.  Cleaning up your own messes—Adam would be so proud.  You roll your eyes.  Unleash a lengthy breath.  Turn on your side to face him.

Maybe sleep was an exaggeration.  Insomnia’s a hard habit to break.  You dwell on his quiet form, stilled by slumber or dissociation, and pray that he’s going to be okay.

 


	16. trespass

**xvi.**

Parrish’s face is indecipherable in the darkness of the stairwell.  You see a subtle twitch ripple along his elegant jawline.  He shifts to let you duck inside, though his words stop you before the door’s even shut.  “This going to be a thing again, Lynch?”

A muscle in your throat spasms in displeasure.  “If you want me to fucking leave, all you have to do is say the goddamn words.”  It comes out entirely shitty, because there’s a cold fist smothering the life out of your heart.  You don’t turn toward him.  Don’t want to know what you’d find if you looked.

Just because you’ve missed spending time alone with him, getting as close as you dare…  Obviously that doesn’t mean he’s missed you, too.  Why _would_ he?  He’s undoubtedly sleeping better without you around.

Actually, probably not.  Guided only by his gnawing ambition, it’s likely he stays up through the obscene hours of morning.  Without you to politely suggest he go the fuck to bed, what he’s been getting more of isn’t rest—but work accomplished.  Easier done without your restless presence to distract him.  That’s what he wants.  And he doesn’t want it to change.

You’re suddenly not sure why you came.  Just because you spent hours tying together your plan to take down Greenmantle?  Because you took the liberty of staying over that first night of grievous loss?  There’s no excuse now.  You quit casually spending your nights with him in favor of Monmouth and the Barns, and he doesn’t expect you to be here anymore.

He still hasn’t said a word; you’re fairly certain his silence is a good enough answer.  And now you’re making it weird.

You’ve no right to argue.  The only thing left to do is pick yourself up and leave.  Because you’ve fucked this up too.  Or else he’d never wanted you here to begin with.  Had you mistaken vague tolerance for approval?   The possibility turns your stomach.  When you move for the door, Adam snatches at your arm like you’re flirting with a cliff’s edge.  Hard enough to stop you in your tracks.  The contact lights your every last nerve afire.

The door’s closed before you can formulate a response.  “Sit down, asshole,” he gripes.  But it sounds amused.  When you glance over, a tiny wry smile graces his lips.  It makes him look…  For a moment, he looks _happy_ , and it carves something from your chest.

 


	17. impulse

**xvii.**

Armed with the knowledge that Adam’s got a rare Friday afternoon to himself, you linger in the church lot after school.  Hearing the anemic sputter of an engine’s approach turns your mouth up at the corner.  You wait for the inevitable open and shut of the door.  The quiet scuffle of shoes on asphalt, halting near the BMW.

You feel his eyes raking over you, taking in the indolent sprawl of your limbs across the hood.  Your chin lolls against your shoulder, letting you look back at him.  One of his fair eyebrows is partially quirked.  Arms crossed over his chest. 

You fully expect a lecture about the lack of class you attended today.  Instead, he says nothing.  Fingers the strap of his messenger bag.  Your gaze snags on the jutting slopes of his knuckles. 

“Wanna go to the Barns?” you greet.

To his credit, he barely hesitates.  Answering with a shrug, he responds.  “Sure.  Just let me go upstairs and change.” 

He’s already walking away, so you abandon your perch.  Slinging your feet from the roof, you stand to allow the blood to return to your legs.  You dutifully ignore the twinge in your gut and the voice in your head.  They’re hung on the same word— _reckless, reckless, reckless._

 


	18. miscalculation

**xviii.**

There’s a peaceful warmth to the air inside the barn.  Parrish wanders its length with you, hands trailing over tables and shelves and the curiosities populating them.  A lone bicycle wheel that turns a pennywhistle tune.  A three-legged wooden chair resting on a good inch of thin air.  Several complicated twists of wrought iron.  An ice sphere that doesn’t melt.  Machines with no power supply.  Some highly improbable plants.

Most of the oddities were your father’s, but you’ve made additions.  There’s a wide fabric hammock strung up at the end of this building.  Thinking a change in scenery might stimulate your dreaming, you’ve spent more than a few hours back there.  You don’t always return with something meant to wake or save.  Some of your dreams are frustrating, useless, fanciful—some combination of all three.

A large gilded cage with no visible door.  A finely detailed sword.  A darkened mirror.  A lantern lit with a particular shade of blue fire, one that’ll never fizzle out.  Adam picks up a watch that bears a passing resemblance to his own.  It’s unremarkable but for the minute hand, restlessly trapped on _6:21_.  He taps the face, turns it over, then sets it down.  “I listened to your mixtape, you know,” he muses.  All casual.

Your heart falters over a raucous rhythm while your lungs scramble to regroup.  “Did you, now?” you ask carefully.  Something dangerous simmers in the words.

He rounds a stack of boxes, inspecting a patchy rug slung over a low bench.  It twitches as he runs his fingers across its surface.  His eyebrows lift in surprise.  “Believe me, it was accidental,” he answers. 

You really should have known better, but you weren’t anticipating this.  Brainless arrogance.  When you brought that tape out of your dreams, your first instinct was to burn it like the shirt.  Evidently you should have.

“I was expecting ninety minutes of murder squash.”

For some reason, you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.  You didn’t _expect_ him to listen through the second loop of the first song.  That was the entire point.  He’d once compared it to the agonized screech of a burning pterodactyl being shoved through a wood-chipper.  Why the hell would he subject himself to ten minutes of that?  There was something idealistic, stupidly sentimental about him driving around with the foolish, pining mess of a gift and not even realizing it.  Key point there being the _not_.  Which is clearly fucked all to hell.

“You surpassed my very low expectations.  Apparently, you have layers.”

Far too many emotions writhe for dominance inside you.  Panic.  Bewilderment.  Vast depths of shame.  A smoke-thin wisp of hope.  A voracious urge to escape.  You feel that familiar curl of anger heating below it all.  So much of what you can’t process runs over as fury.  But you don’t want a repeat of last time.  You don’t want to fight.

Desperately needing a distraction, you reach for the shelf nearest you.  Snatch up a translucent, rubbery ball holding a swirling galaxy captive—one of your creations.  When you turn, Adam’s quietly waiting.  You have his full attention, so he doesn’t miss when you lob it at his head.  For an expansive moment, nothing happens.  The eruption’s as arbitrary as it is sudden, forceful like a water balloon blasted from a cannon.  The result: him drenched in a swath of multifaceted, sparkling paint.

Adam’s initial reaction is sheer horror.  A couple of glances between your face and his outstretched hands, and he realizes you knew damn well what would happen.  The second his expression blanks, you know you’re in for it.  “You insufferable _bastard_ ,” he protests.

“It’ll wash off!” you defend.

“I take it back.”  His steps toward you are deliberate and brook no room for argument.  “You are _all_ asshole, all the time.”  He scrapes a hand down the front of his shirt.  Mercilessly smears the glob of paint across your face.  You cackle helplessly.  He doesn’t give you time to prepare before he lunges, dragging you to the floor.

He’s hardly touched you before.  The history of your casual contact essentially consists of his right knee against yours in the backseat of the Pig or the booth at Nino’s.  Bare moments of punches and elbows and slaps.  Never this.  Not grappling, untidy tussling, body against body.  You’re on unsolid ground.  It’s dropping away beneath you.  This much of him pressing into you is a wildfire, an earthquake rattling the heart in your chest.  Your world tips over and—

It ends with his knees astride your hips.  Hands making short work of pinning your wrists down.  Face leaning entirely too close to yours.  A sharp spike of lust claws through you, and for once you forget to feel like the worst kind of person.  Warm breath puffs across your lips from his proximity.  Another handful of inches, and he could be kissing you.  As if he’s somehow privy to that thought, his countenance melts from mirth to terror. 

You need to be out from under him _yesterday_.  A risky, abrupt movement of hips and knees, and Adam is dumped to the ground.  His breath is coming too fast.  Yours has departed the room entirely.  You are so, _so_ fucked.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually made the playlist in all its ridiculous pining glory. Check out [the tumblr post](http://moreraventhanothers.tumblr.com/post/161105784568/the-pines)!  
>    
> [](http://moreraventhanothers.tumblr.com/post/161105784568/the-pines)


	19. backlash

**xix.**

You can’t get out of the damn barn fast enough.  Parrish is likely left speechless and downright confused in your thunderous wake, but at least he’s safe from you.  He...  _Fucking hell._ He can deal with the rest.  Your hands are trembling.  _Abomination_ , your gut whispers.  It’s a feeble attempt, trying to convince yourself the situation in your pants is from adrenaline.  It doesn’t work.  You want to douse yourself in gasoline.

You’re fraught with a keen desperation to just _stop_ feeling this way.  Funny, how that guilts you.  Because Adam definitely deserves to be loved.  But he needs that from someone better than you.  Someone worthy.  And someone he could be interested in in return.  Not you. 

Not whatever monster you’re becoming.  You’re supposed to be his friend, for fuck’s sake.  And yet you keep hurting him like this.  _Jesus_.  Heaping unwanted attention on him, lusting after him like some type of sick predator…  _Fuck._ You _hate_ that you’re doing this to him.  Hate that you’re capable of it.  Wish you could stop being so fucking selfish. 

There’s paint all over you, irrefutable evidence of the disaster that just took place.  Your indiscretion.  His… _panic_.  Goddamn it, you never wanted to be a threat to him.  In any way.  Ever.  The ache in the clenched curl of your fists eats its way up your spine.  White knuckles and a need to destroy, roasting you from the inside out—but the enemy here is you. 

The pain registers before the action itself.  Your arm lashes out again.  Wood splinters.  Skin tears.  A serrated scream gathers behind your ribs like a storm.  You can’t let it strike.  He’ll hear.  He’ll follow you outside with his wary eyes and his indignant questions.  _What the fuck is wrong with you, Ronan?_   Your forehead collapses against the side of the barn.  Choking down breath after uneven breath to smother the urge.  _Fuck._ Your muscles still shudder with tension when you’ve finally pulled yourself together enough to move.  As you trudge inside for a scorching shower, you feel dirty in more ways than one.

The drive back to Henrietta is all but silent.  Adam’s tense in the passenger seat, freshly showered and wearing the t-shirt and sweatpants you left him.  The disgust splintering through your veins keeps you from really appreciating the sight.  Your petulant eyes still catalog the way the fabric hangs off his frame, the cutting angles of hips and collarbones.  Of course.  More fuel to add to the inferno of self-hatred razing your internal organs.

He’s much quieter than usual.  It’s not the comfortable silence that often settles between you—there’s a presence to that.  This is the glaring absence of sound, hungry and volatile.  Your pulse is caught up in all the words he doesn’t say.  The prickling warmth of his gaze has forsaken you entirely.  When you glance over, his head’s resting against the glass.  His eyes are open, focused outward, but his stare is long and empty.  He knows a line’s been crossed as well as you do.  You wonder what this means for you.  Wonder if you’ve ruined everything.

Kavinsky’s waiting when you succumb to exhaustion.  The gleeful grin distorting his face spells trouble.  Poison.  Regret.  “You’re just as bad as me, Princess,” he taunts, damning to the last.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... um... went kind of completely overboard responding to a comment about Adam's feelings during this fic. If you're interested in me discussing his unseen perspective, check out [my response here](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/109425180).   
>    
> 


	20. remorse

**xx.**

You’re well into the third six-pack of the night when a piercing slam vibrates the floor.  The echo of Sargent’s voice trails it into the apartment.  A bitter little smile crooks lips against bottle mouth.  There’s a wretched curiosity worming through the hollow chambers of your heart.  _Does Adam know Gansey’s on late-night-Monmouth-visit terms with her?_

“Why are you doing this to yourself, Ronan?”

Distracted and beer-sluggish, establishing that the voice came from outside your head is a clumsy process.  A slight tilt of the neck, and the shadow beside you coalesces into something more substantial.  Noah’s slumped against the wall, looking dreadfully faded and worn.  His appearances lately have been so few and far between, you’ve almost forgotten to expect them.

“Doing what, Czerny?”  Your voice is dulled, rough from disuse.

“Torturing yourself,” he answers.  “It doesn’t have to _be_ like this.  You don’t have to—”

And fuck if you don’t know exactly where that sentence is headed well before he finishes.  It’s not like you haven’t thought it a thousand times over.  “You think I haven’t _fucking tried not to_?” you cut in.  There’s enough venom laced through the words to eradicate an entire species.

You struggle to lower your voice.  The last thing you need right now is more of Dick’s judgey _Ganseyface_.  “I can’t fucking do it.  I just… can’t.  He’s…  God, he’s everywhere.  In my damn head, my gut, my worthless piece of shit heart.  He’s lodged so fucking deep, I don’t know if there’d be anything left.  Every time I try, it’s like…  Like I’m bleeding myself raw.” 

Even talking about it—knowing full well Noah’s able to harvest your thoughts regardless—is excruciating.  Every word’s a shard of glass.  Every admission, salt to the wounds.  You palm your eyes to ease the biting sting of frustration.  “I’m so fucked up.  I don’t know how to—” 

A ragged sigh jackknifes through your lungs.  The sentence dangles unfinished.  You can’t dissect this complex bundle of anguish festering inside you and reduce it to words.  “It’s easy for _you_ to tell me to stop feeling, Noah.  You’re fucking dead.”  You let the clink of another bottle cap tumbling to the floor punctuate the sentiment.

He gives off a sigh of generalized disappointment.  “That’s not what I meant, Ronan, and you know it.”

Irritation seeks its noisy refuge in your throat.  “What _did_ you mean, then?  How about you enlighten me, bitchwagon?  Jesus shitting Christ, I’m clearly all out of fucking answers here!”

His eyes drift meaningfully toward your bedroom door.  Yours roll in response.  _Fucking babysitter._ “You need to tell him,” he murmurs, grave solemnity coloring the words.

You loose a sound of glorious disdain.  “Yeah…  ‘Cause _that_ sounds like a real shitfuck of a damn good time.”

“Talk to him, Ronan.  Please.”  He sounds unnaturally invested, for an undead figment of magic and circumstance.  The bottle sags from your lips as you assess him.  You’d always considered him a friend, but with him begging you to do _this_?  When’d Noah decide he hated you?  That seems like the only sensible explanation.  “I don’t,” he answers.  “And you don’t know how he’s gonna react.”

 _Yes I do._ Suffocating silences and an utter lack of eye contact were just the first stage.  If you rub his face in your sick desires again, any number of your dreamt nightmare scenarios might bleed into reality.  “If I was looking for something to blow up in my goddamn face that badly,” you drawl.  “I think I’d go for an actual live-ass grenade.”  _It’d hurt less._

Noah directs a look of intense pity your way.  “You’re being stupid.”

“Now that’s the damn truth,” you agree.  “I think the only way I could possibly be _more_ stupid about this would be to follow your fuckwit advice.”

“You might be surprised.”

Your lip curls around a belligerent sneer.  “Thanks, dickbag.”

The depth of sadness in Noah’s eyes—on top of everything you’re already feeling—is something you nearly can’t handle.  You came here to drink, to forget.  This, whatever the hell _this_ is, is the opposite of that.

“Just talk to him, Ronan,” the mournful tone spills from him before he blinks out of existence altogether.

You are definitely _not_ going to talk to Adam.  You are, however, going to down another six-pack of beer and hefty measure of self-pity.

 


	21. relapse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> cw: night horror introspection  
> 

**xxi.**

To be fair, it’s your own goddamn fault it happens.  Shuffling out of your room for a piss, you’re busy gauging the outrageous level of pain you’re in.  The likelihood of you being able to mold the miserable mess you’ve got to work with into some semblance of a functional human being in time for church.  Not whether you’ll have company. 

But when you step into the bathroom, Gansey’s rooting around in the fridge.  “Lynch.  I was starting to fear we’d have to presume you dead and alert the authorities,” he greets from the other side of the door.  The _fuck off_ you offer in reply is reflexive.  When he turns, the wilt of his cheer into the very picture of displeasure is instantaneous.  And it hits you then, that your lack of shirt doesn’t do a damn thing to hide the evidence.

Dipping your toes back into the well-worn habits of hateful binge-drinking and indulgent self-loathing deteriorated into something much worse.  A day-long bender.  Hours stacked on hours, spent unhealthily languishing in the mire of shit you’ve gotten yourself into.

The end result?  Slipping into a drunken oblivion so deep, you could _taste_ the acrid stench of the night horror flattening you against the blackened ground.  The telltale metallic shriek of the others’ approach piercing your ears like a bullet.  It took the savage bite of pain, the unmistakable hook of a talon seeking your heart to finally shock you awake.  You didn’t return unscathed.

And Gansey doesn’t even have to ask.  He’s put it together before he so much as blinks.  You still doubt he grasps the actual mechanics of your night horrors.  He knows now, that they were responsible for the bloody fiasco landing you in the hospital last year.  But the look on his face suggests he’s faulted the excess alcohol consumption as the problem here.

He doesn’t understand.  How the night horrors have a taste for the loathing that breeds beneath your skin on the bad nights.  That they’re provoked by that bone-deep desire to exterminate some ugly part of yourself.  They’re trying to help, in their own twisted, horrific way.

“Are you done?” he asks, voice soft and devoid of life.  The utter disappointment underpinning it hurts much more than anything in his expression. 

“Yeah,” you reply in kind.  And it’s the truth.  You’re _quite_ finished.  The too close for comfort near-permanence of this particular mistake haunts you.  It’s more than enough to remind you that you _do_ , in fact, fucking really want to live.  And you need to see that your demons don’t take the decision from you.

 


	22. penance

**xxii.**

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the prospect of enduring Declan’s presence for an hour has you questioning that resolve.  While you’ve managed to clean yourself up, get there on time, and settle against the kneeler to pray forgiveness for your many sins—it’s clearly not enough.  “Ronan,” he snarls, and it sounds like he meant to say _unforgiveable_ or _disgrace_.  You lift your head from the cradle of your arms and eye him with cautious contempt.  “Is it strictly necessary that you humiliate this family at every single turn?”

What gave you away?  Was it the bruised eyes and ashen complexion?  The pained knit nestled between your brows?  Your unsteady stance, the halting movements?  Were you unable to scrub the sweet stench of alcohol from your pores?  Something was enough to tip him off. 

Leave it to Declan to be observant when it entitles him something to be shitty about.  “Go to fucking hell,” you slur as Matthew takes his place between you.  He greets you with a friendly shoulder jostle and a luminous grin, ignorant of the tension simmering in the air.  The pungent tang of his cologne sends your oversensitive stomach into somersaults.

“Oh, I think you’re headed there fast enough for the both of us.”  It’s uncommonly unlike you to allow him the last word, but your skull already feels three sizes too small—and it’s not like he’s _wrong._

The service lets out, and the bastard sun’s entirely unsympathetic to your plight.  The persistent jarring throb overwrites your thoughts with a constant stream of swears.  Standing there in the lot, squinting and pinching the bridge of your nose, the only thing you want to do is retreat to a pitch-black, noiseless room for several hours.  Matthew tries to persuade you to join him and Declan for lunch.  You persuade _him_ that you’d rather take a drill to the temple than agree to that kind of fucking punishment.

He sighs good-naturedly.  Tugs you into a habitual brotherly handshake before drifting off to join Dicklan and his pretentious guise of socializing with the residents of Henrietta.  Matthew’s departure permits you an unobstructed view of the apartment entrance.

Where Adam is currently loitering.  Clearly waiting for you, because the timing can’t be a coincidence.  And since when does Parrish waste his precious time skulking around in stairwells?  He’s watching you, expression visibly serious even from this distance.  Nearly guaranteeing that he wants to _talk_.  Your imagination can’t concoct a single scenario where that might end well.

You’re not sure which would be the hardest to face.  His rightful disgust and anger, bursting at the seams?  Him screaming you into shameful repentance?  You _get it_ already, you’re disappointing everyone.  You don’t need to hear any more about it.  Or would it be the pity?  Him feeling obligated to make sure you’re alright, because you’re obviously a pathetic piece of shit.  You’re not.  You’re not fucking okay.  You are in this moment very _far_ from fucking okay.

He notices you noticing him, eyes locking with yours.  Presumably, he also sees you turn heel and escape to the BMW.

You can’t deal with this right now.  Running on the fumes of a toxic cocktail of the special brand of anger spawned by Declan, hangover frustration, and the corrosive disappointment of others—you can’t possibly interact with Adam and not hurt him one way or another.  You need to unwind.  Need time to pull your damn self together at least a fraction.  To cool off, before you unintentionally ruin everything you have in a pique of blind, defensive rage.

Palm on the gearshift, you see his form lingering in the rearview mirror.  He hasn’t moved an inch.  Except his posture reflects something decidedly more unpleasant.  _Disappointed_.  You throw the car into reverse.  Your ribs form too tight a cage for the discomfort seeping throughout your chest.

 


	23. pretense

**xxiii.**

Parrish doesn’t bring up either encounter, to your vast surprise and limitless relief.  You’ve resigned yourself to hell, and instead you get… nothing.  It’s not at all what you expect—until his gaze hitches on the angry gash across your sternum.

Dread threatens to unravel you, then.  There’s shock etched in the tanned angles of his face, so Gansey hasn’t run his damn mouth after all.  May the wonders never cease.  His eyes search yours.  The last dregs of deliverance slip away, leaving you cold.

Your silence begs, prays him not to ask.  To leave it be.  You throw up every last bit of battered armor you still have at your disposal.  Scour your emergency reserves to shield yourself with a façade of open hostility.  Anything to escape this scrutiny.

You’ve enough guilt to bear as it is.  Him discovering you nearly got yourself killed in an undignified display of idiocy, disregard for personal safety, and pathetic self-pity?  _Yeah_ , that thought’s abhorrent.  You dial the shittiness in your glare up a notch.  Adam averts his eyes.

His restraint’s a temporary condition, though.  Your withering scorn does shit-all to actually discourage him later.  You sense him staring when he thinks you won’t notice.  His eyes stray again and again, and every time his expression’s inscrutable.

You’re torn between a ravening curiosity to know what he’s thinking and an outright desperation to never learn.  As much as he’s glowered at your injury, you’re frankly amazed he hasn’t said anything.  Yet still, he doesn’t mention a single damn word about the weekend.

 _Whatever_.  If you’re not going to talk about it, great!  Fucking fine.  The finest of fucking fine on a shitstick of thank hell and fuck.  You’re content to follow his lead there.  Acting like nothing ever happened is infinitely more straightforward when he’s pretending the same.

The pretense clears you to hang out with him again.  Which you do.  When and wherever you can.  If you were the type to invite self-awareness, you’d probably admit it’s not the smartest decision.  But you’re the one who made such a balls-ass mess of things.  He’s apparently willing to give you a second chance.  You won’t squander it punishing him for your mistakes.

That doesn’t mean you forget.  You made a promise to yourself, and you’ll do your damnedest to keep it.  It’s not easy to rein yourself in.  Your efforts at avoiding contact are hard-won at best.  The stilted sidesteps and tense silences build, but it’s safer that way.  If you don’t let him near you, it can’t happen again.

And if you need to pretend he’s not frowning at you more than he has since you first met—then that’s just the price you have to pay.  You can deal with the friction, the awkwardness, if it saves you a repeat incident.  So you try, and you try.

If only he’d stop making things harder.  Maybe you’re wrong.  Logic would say Adam’s not doing a damn thing differently.  His world doesn’t revolve around you.  What a bold assumption, to think he’s going out of his way to…  _Highly fucking doubtful_.  It’s so much more likely you _think_ you’re deflecting too much of his attention, just because you hadn’t realized how tough it’d be.  You’ve never been the poster child for self-control.

But maybe he _is_.  Each casual brush of skin, every ghost of touch that you hastily evade—it feels like a test he’s waiting for you to fail.  Could be that he enjoys watching you squirm.

Though what the hell would he be playing at?  That’s what you can’t figure out.  If the catastrophe at the Barns dragged everything to messy light…

It’s shit-near impossible to believe it couldn’t have.  That mixtape was _easily_ damning enough evidence on its own.  The straddling incident?  Atomic bombs have been less conspicuous than that.

Yet he’s still speaking to you.  Why?  And why the _fuck_ would he want to bait you into another slip-up?  It doesn’t make a damn bit of sense.  Maybe deliberate denial’s left him some morsel of doubt.  And Adam, science guy extraordinaire, needs a definitive conclusion.  Grasping for that last bit of concrete evidence before he passes his final judgment.

And if that’s the case?  Well, you’re determined not to give it to him.

 


	24. stowaway

**xxiv.**

You can’t even pretend you’re not bothered by how little time passes before you stick your foot in it again.  It’s a hard truth to swallow.  How such a good day—full of pre-dawn escapes to the Barns, domestic upkeep, animal tending, and plans to dream up some safety for Gansey—could so quickly turn to shit.  Probably you should just count yourself lucky Parrish isn’t involved this time.

 _Please advise_.  That fucking text.  You don’t know what it is, but it’s damn sure _something_.  Under some other circumstances, you might take the time to try to figure out what it means from him—means _to_ you.  But under different circumstances, your monumental idiocy wouldn’t have docked the ley line so hard Parrish not only felt the aftershocks, but the need to inquire after your safety.  As it stands, the most constant fixture of your dream world is staring at you from beneath the end table.

 _Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck._ What in the actual shit were you thinking, pulling the urchin from your nightmare?  You clearly goddamn _weren’t_.  And fuck if that doesn’t seem to be a theme lately.

You’re sure it wasn’t intentional.  But _the path to hell_ and all that.  The darkness was coming for you both.  You’d leapt without thought—and here she is.

You’ll be alone next time.  It’s the first realization that cuts through the static haze of every creative swear you know.  For as long as you can remember, Orphan Girl’s been a reasonably consistent inhabitant of your Greywaren dreams.  You’ve grown up with her.  Now all you’ve got are the trees and the night horrors.  Unless dream-Adam or Kavinsky decides to put in an appearance.  They don’t seem to mind intruding, no matter the kind of dream.

It follows, the rational conclusion that now the girl’s real outside your head.  Jesus fuck, that means you’re… responsible for her.  For another fucking _person_.  You have to figure out how to take care of her when you’ve made it painfully obvious to everyone around you that you’re not even capable of caring for yourself.

How.  How is this even fucking possible?  Like you weren’t a colossal enough fuck-up already?  This just takes the fucking cake.  The reproachful voice in your head sounds an awful lot like Declan.  And if the fact that you agree with it isn’t a sign, you don’t know what is.

School lets out and you still can’t get a handle on a solution.  You pace the living room for what feels like the thousandth time.  Tear at leather with your teeth.  No matter how many times you leave the room, how many things you slam, how long you stare at yourself in the bathroom mirror, how many times you swear this situation up down and sideways, she’s still there when you return.  Curled behind some furniture in the corner, softly alternating between Latin and that strange language you can’t comprehend here.  Chainsaw swooped in to keep her company the first time you stormed off.  She stays close, softly nudging the girl with her beak every time she edges on hysteria.

Exhaustion weights your bones.  As repellant as you may find it, calling Gansey seems to be your best option.  He’s sure to have far more ideas than the exact zero you’re sitting on.

 


	25. workaround

**xxv.**

“To what do I owe this immense pleasure?” he answers.  Misgiving traps your tongue in a submission hold.  “Lynch?  Honestly, could you not deign to take a moment out of your busy schedule of truant delinquency to dignify my message with a reply?  Parrish was concerned.  Is everything good?”

“I—”  The raven settling on your shoulder interrupts, forcing you to reposition your arm to accommodate her.  She nips at a finger harder than you think necessary.  You clear your throat, try again.  “I may need help.  Bring the Suburban.”

A choked sound of dismay crackles across the line.  “ _What?_   Are you okay?  Is it something out of your dreams, like Adam said?”  You expect Gansey’s imagination is steering him down a road dotted with memories of slashed wrists, greasy wings, hooked claws, and all-too-recent wounds.  “Are we burying another body?”

 _Christ._   You end the call without warning, realizing too late how much worse that makes things look.  Chainsaw presses her head against your cheek, insistent.  You absently scritch the back of her neck.

Time turns elastic, taut and stagnant until you finally overhear the crunch of gravel up the drive.  When you meet Gansey at the door, he launches into a disconcertingly chipper tirade.  “Jesus, would it actually kill you to observe any semblance of proper phone etiquette?  Looks like you’re not murdered.  Where’s the emergency?”

Your fingers drum against the open door.  “Did I say anything about an emergency, Richie Rich?”

“You _asked for help_ , Lynch.  I expected corpses, flames, a partial chance of nuclear fallout…”

“Doesn’t look like anything’s on fire.”  Parrish came with him.  Of course he did.  Suddenly, Gansey’s delayed arrival makes sense.

He steps inside, already dressed for work.  For a fleeting moment, you regret eating into his pre-shift free time.  He has so little as it is.  Everything about this situation is far from ideal, but you’re grateful for his presence all the same.  You tilt an irreverent smirk in his direction.  “Just give it time.”

Leading them through the halls, reluctance erodes your conviction that this was the right thing to do.  The living room bears little evidence of the mishap—only the shredded suit wadded into a dirty ball on the floor, and the satyr girl you’d eventually coaxed out of it.

She’d promptly snatched the blanket draped across the oversized armchair.  Burrowed into the cushions as far as she was able.  The only parts of her left visible, a single hoof and her half-hidden face.  Chainsaw rests curled up on the chair back, posture more feline than raven.

“Is this your idea of an elaborate joke?”

You let out a grudging huff.  “Afraid not, Dick.”

“Seriously.”  His parental expression of disapproval is locked into place.  You hadn’t expected any less, but you _are_ surprised he’s being this blasé about it.  “And what, exactly, in your living room requires our assistance and the use of an SUV?”

 _Oh._   He’s somehow looked right over her.  You open your mouth to respond, but you don’t know where to start.  Adam’s the first to notice something’s amiss.

His eyebrows rapidly crawl toward his hairline.  “What.  In.”  Words desert him for several solid seconds.  “Hell,” he finishes haltingly.

The girl shifts further back, like she’s hoping the chair might swallow her whole.  Gansey sees her then.  His face creases in consternation, thumb raising in familiar nervous habit.  “Explain,” he demands.

“She’s…  I…  My dreams.  I grew up with her in my dreams.”  Teeming with anxious energy, you fidget with your leather bracelets.  “I’m not sure what she is.  She called herself a psychopomp.  She helped me focus.” 

 _‘And?’_ Gansey’s lone arched eyebrow says, clearer than if he’d spoken the word himself.  You’re distinctively uncomfortable.  This dual-bladed judgment cracks you open and abandons you to the elements.  Exposed.  Rendered raw and vulnerable.  “I don’t know, man.  There was something else in the dream.  _Periculosum_.”  A muffled whimper leaves the mound of blanket, cushions, and girl.  “It was enough of a struggle to get out of there in time.  I have no clue how she came with me.” 

Adam’s lip curls, and for a brief moment he looks like he’d love nothing more than to renounce you as a source of problems.  “How could you be _this_ irresponsible, Ronan?”

An unpleasant lurch unseats your heart.  “I don’t fucking _know_ , Parrish.  I was too busy trying to make sure I got out with all my goddamn limbs to take the time to check whether I had any stowaways.  Sorry that _fucking inconveniences_ you.”

“Hey, Lynch.  You don’t need to be a dick just because you’re pissed at your own incompetence.”

“Real motherfucking astute, asshole.”

“What are we supposed to do with… that?” Gansey interrupts, reasonably.

“That’s what _you’re_ supposed to tell me.”

Cold calculation washes over Adam’s face before he settles on “Cabeswater.”

“Jesus Christ.”  Gansey pales.  “How is that meant to be helpful?”

Parrish’s offense is a sudden and angry thing.  You don’t have time to unpack its source before he answers with a glare.  “Ronan’s mother.”

 _Of course_.  Such a neat, simple damn solution when he presents it like that.  Something you think should have definitely occurred to you before now, now that you know where to look.

But Adam has always been so good at that.  Forging connections.  Taking what amounts to a shattered mess of nothing in anyone else’s hands, and forming it into something beautiful in conception.

The existence of a plan vastly improves your mood.  “Come on, shit nugget.  We’re taking a trip.”  Orphan Girl shows no intention of moving.  Like _that’s_ going to help her get her way.

When you move to lift her, she screeches like Chainsaw might—if she were powered by forty-odd pounds of wild, unyielding girl.  The raven herself bustles out of the room, unfond of such commotion when it isn’t her own.

“And to think I had actually made plans today,” Gansey laments.

 


	26. dick

**xxvi.**

Gansey’s temper is nearly the worst you’ve seen it by the time the Suburban jerks to a halt in front of 300 Fox Way.  Exchanging the unholy terror’s silence for the promise of open windows and fresh air was useless.  He’s beyond done, and seems determined to drag you down with him. 

You can admit that you derive a sick sort of joy from witnessing something tease apart real boy and conscientious composure.  But this time it just feels like he’s rubbing your nose in all of your shortcomings.  “Whatever, old man.”

The indignant sound of irritation he makes matches his darkening expression in the rearview mirror.  “Would you _stop_ calling me that?  For Christ’s sake, Lynch, I’m younger than you.”

“Yet only one of us acts like a 40-year-old man.”

“You?” he fires back.  “Is that what all _this_ —” Gansey gestures in a vague way that’s likely meant to encompass the backseat, you, and your flippant attitude toward propriety.  “—is?  A perpetual midlife crisis?”

A soft laugh escapes from the vicinity of the passenger seat.  “Got something to say, Parrish?”

“Nah, I think you two are just about covering it.”

Sargent’s arrival dials back his annoyance.  Until it doesn’t.  Then Gansey puts words to your fear that this dreaming business is hurting everyone around you.  And Parrish doesn’t hesitate to agree.

Your cheer abruptly sours into seething silence.  You don’t know why their criticism tugs against something in you the way it does, not when you’re so determined not to give a single fuck.

No.  You know the answer.  But it’s dangerous as hell to dwell on it.  Because you care so damn much about them.  Gansey—more of a brother to you than Declan’s been these past few years, by a wide margin.  And Adam…

Is that all you are to them?  A hazard.  An inconvenience.  A blast zone to be negotiated.  _Dreamers are to be classified as weapons_.  Maybe that’s all you were ever meant to be.  The scab still spanning your chest sure doesn’t dispute it.

You try to shrug it off.  Things can’t be that dire.  Not when they aren’t a fraction as bad as you’d feared.  Orphan Girl won’t be alone.  You won’t need to shoulder the full brunt of responsibility for this mess you’ve made.  Your mom will take care of her.  Aurora is the kindest and most nurturing person you’ve ever met—possibly in all existence.  Exactly what Niall dreamed her to be.

Your thoughts turn to Matthew, which doesn’t help in the slightest.  Looks like Gansey got his wish after all.  Now you’re both pissy as shit.  It’s a regular goddamn party.

 


	27. cabeswater

**xxvii.**

The brat’s obstinately set against getting out with the others, so you’re stuck arguing with her in the SUV.  Getting nowhere despite the minutes you’ve wasted.  She’s every bit the impossible asshole you know you can be.  And if there’s one thing you need right now, that’s not it.

You hurl your head against the headrest, expelling an aggrieved sigh.  When your eyes roll, your gaze finds Parrish standing outside the window with Blue.  They speak quietly as you watch.  He’s looking at her in that same incredibly intentional way you avoid staring at Adam’s lips.

Your lungs crumple like tissue paper.  The ache sends your already thin patience hurtling to its demise.  Fully aware you’re letting anger get the better of you, you snap at the girl.  It’s nasty.  Rude.  Unnecessary.  A checklist of met expectations.  You’re tearing out of the vehicle, ripping open the tailgate before you even register it.  She shrieks when you grab her, belting out an ear-splitting _KERAH!_ and flailing with enough force to wind up a pile of feral dream creature on the ground.

Orphan Girl’s been your peculiar dream companion for years on end.  She should recognize when you’ve run out of rope.  She’s supposed to stop pushing.  A shame she doesn’t, because you’re too over this entire shitfuck of a day to grant her any more lenience.  Three pairs of disapproving eyes bore holes through you as you forcibly remove her into the forest.

You wish suddenly, viciously, that they’d just fucking leave you to do it yourself.  Your dream, your mess, your problem.  The semi-rational part of you actually understands the likelihood that Cabeswater could mirror the frustration you’re shedding in waves.  You might be searching hours for the glen without the Magician’s assistance.  Thankfully, he’s offering.

It still takes too long.  Fatigue digs into your arms well before you arrive.  With the vague hope she’ll use her own damn legs, you set the girl down.  Defiant, she collapses like an insolent little piece of shit.  It’s a motherfucking mystery why you expected anything else would happen.  For a split second, you consider just abandoning her there.  In the very next, you hate yourself for the thought.  She’s scared.  Neither of you expected her to cross the boundary from the dream world to your real one.

But she’d asked for it—more than once.  _Tollerere me a hic!_   You can still hear her begging, quavering and utterly terrified.  And the accompanying scene’s clung to your memory like a stain.  The reminder of that horror, of Adam’s blood coating your hands, cools your rage several degrees.  Enough to realize she’s started up a reel with some invisible birds.

Gansey’s bad mood evaporates with the tune, and with the leaves he makes into airborne fish.  Light and full of laughter, he’s giddy and joking with Sargent.  You’re glad to see him happy again.  Resentment doesn’t suit kings.  You don’t look at Adam.  Don’t want to know whether you’ll find jealousy or longing emblazoned on his face.  Don’t want to risk him catching it on yours.

So the first boom startles you more than you’d like to admit.  The vibration travels from the soles of your boots straight to your bones.  You clutch the girl, fearing Cabeswater’s somehow transmuted your turbulent thoughts into an earthquake.  Another joins it.  And another.  Recognition strikes then, placing the processed blare of a bass drop.  The electronic thuds continue through the trees, pulsing along with the beat of the birds.

Bewildered, you finally turn to Parrish.  The corner of his mouth lifts and you feel the dawn of a joyous smile break.  _It doesn’t mean anything_ , you think, all caution and doubt.  Desperate to wall off the vulnerability threating to escape against your better judgment.  You saw the way he was looking at Blue, only minutes ago.  The melancholy hunger.

So he noticed you were pissed off, and he’s trying to cheer you up.  It’s a friendly gesture.  That’s all.  But the mere fact that he bothered to try—that he used something so quintessentially _you_ to do so…  It still renders you stupidly, senselessly happy.

Following the exchange of pleasantries, Aurora takes you aside.  “Dearest, what’s gotten you so wound up?”  It fascinates you, how she can still see right through you.  Even though you must bear only a scarce, passing resemblance to the son she left behind.

How can you begin to answer that?  _Nothing.  Everything.  The nightmares.  This stupid thing with Adam.  The thing with Glendower.  With Gansey._   The feeling that everything is slipping through your fingers.  That you won’t be able to hold onto any of it.  You settle on Orphan Girl.

“That’s not the only thing.”

“No shit,” you respond automatically.  And instantly feel bad about it.  You’ve always done your best to curb your foul mouth around her.  Her glance in Adam’s direction turns your gut to lead.  _Is it that fucking obvious?_   The possibility leaves you feeling wretched.

“You love so fiercely, my heart.”  The words are at once an observation, a warning, an explanation.  Filled with warmth, knowing, and gentle disappointment.  For a jagged moment, you’re sure she’s referencing the cold futility of your feelings for Parrish.  But her gaze is fixed on the wayward girl.

“No Mom,” you say, emotions you can’t fully contain shredding you from the inside out.  “This wasn’t like before.” 

And it wasn’t.  You never meant to take the girl out.  Perhaps you should have considered it, given how thoroughly she hated your dreams.  But no, you’re a selfish creature at heart.  You know where that would have left you—right where you stand now.  _Alone, alone, alone_.

“Things are different,” you snap at the forest’s edge, bleak misery creeping into your tone.  _Really_ , you think when your mom collapses, _they’re all starting to feel the same._

You head straight for the back of the Suburban when you return with Gansey.  After everything, you don’t much feel up to deciphering whether you’re back in his good graces.  Or talking in general.  So you slump into the corner and wait for the others.

Parrish opens the rear passenger door.  He assesses the messy sprawl of your limbs, appraises whatever’s going on with your face before he starts to climb in.  You lean forward.  “Get out,” you order.

Adam gapes.  “Seriously, Ronan?”  Disbelief sown through his tone in spades.  “What the hell now?”

“Ronan,” Gansey warns as he buckles himself in.  Good to know the idea of you doing anything nice is still a foreign concept.

“Move it, Parrish.”  He obeys, but stands his ground beside the open door.  Crowding you as you slide past him.  He looks personally affronted, as if the idea that you wouldn’t want to sit near him might actually wound him.  You fling a mocking gesture at the interior when he doesn’t budge.  Visibly fed up by your antics, he gets back in the car.  You smack his hand away from the seatbelt.  “Scooch.”

His brows knit, unknit, and reknit as he puzzles out your strange demands.  Like maybe he hasn’t noticed that you’ll take special pains to arrange yourself at his hearing side.  Like he’s surprised you care.  Beyond that, like he’s surprised that you even remember.

 _Like you could ever forget_.

 


	28. weary

**xxviii.**

There’s no air in the room.  Every useless rib-caged organ engulfed by the void.  Lungs liable to buckle under the tension.  Dangerous words crowd the tip of your tongue.  The only way to ease the pressure is to let them fall where they may.  Experience has taught you that much.

“I think I’m in love with you.”  That familiar moment follows—weightless and awful—where you can’t for the life of you understand why you couldn’t leave well e- _fucking_ -nough alone.  How, despite the bitter, unrelenting knowledge of how this plays out, you let them escape.  Invited the ruination.

He doesn’t react to the admission that’s steadily dismantling every bit of strength you might have ever had.  “Adam?”  Sandpaper and gravel.  His eyes are still glued to his history book.  In the shifting irrationality of magic and ghosts, he’s frozen in time.  Graceful hand suspended mid-pencil tap.  A breath shudders out of you.

He takes it up, casts it back.  “You’re not.  You have no concept of what love even is.”  Logic whispers that the voice isn’t coming from the boy in front of you.  It belongs to him, but it’s behind you, inside you, beside you.  Low and harsh in your ear.  You don’t bother to look—there’s nothing behind you but the worn surface of the wall.

“You think you’re something special?  Because you were born into this wonderful paragon household of love?”  His sneer is audible.  “Newsflash, Lynch.  Your father was never there.  He dreamt your mother to raise his children for him.  So he could gallivant all over God’s green earth scot-free.  Who else would have put up with that, if not someone quite literally created for the purpose?  He.  Made.  Her.  To love you.  So he didn’t have to do it himself.  You think that’s _real_?  You think he loved you?  You were just another trophy.” 

You’ve long grown used to Adam’s poisonous diatribes—but they’re usually about you, specifically.  This is a new direction.

“What kind of parent asks a young boy to keep a secret like that, Lynch?  He told you not to tell anyone about the dreams and you never questioned it.  You never questioned it, Ronan.  You wonder why you’re so broken?  He _made you_ that way.”  Ice traces a runnel down your spine.  _Broken_.

“You didn’t even talk to your own brother about it because he _told you not to_.  Don’t you see how messed up that is?  You didn’t think that Declan knew?  You didn’t think that maybe he knew more about it than you?  That he could have helped you?  Clearly, Niall wasn’t going to.  What was his reaction, Ronan?  Oh, you can dream too?  That’s real neat, kid.  So this is super dangerous, and I’m gonna need you to make sure you don’t tell anyone.  Ever.  Yeah, so, uh, good luck with that?”  He’s cutting dangerously close to the mark.  The only thing he ever really taught you was to keep it quiet.

“He _knew_ how likely it was to get him killed, the way he flaunted it.  And he never made any contingencies.  What was his idea of a plan?  Make you all homeless and give you a three-million-dollar consolation prize when you turned eighteen?  Does that sound like love?”

“He left it on Declan to raise you.  Knowing good and well how he set your relationship up to implode.  What else _could_ it do?  He taught you, for your entire lives, not to talk to each other about something as intrinsic as who you are.  Who _he_ was.  For Declan to keep it quiet and just make you mind.  Tie up loose ends.  Didn’t give _you_ any guidance at all.  That’s not love.”

“And it’s not this.”  The finality in his tone has the hair of your arms standing on end.  “ _This_ is a sick obsession.  I don’t know what you expect.  I’m not—”  _Gay_ , your mind supplies unhelpfully.  “I’m not what you want me to be.”  He sighs.  “Even if I was…  God, this would never happen, Lynch.  Did you actually think you could ever be anything to me?  Every damn thing about you is exactly what I _don’t_ want.”  You yield to the threadbare sensation of hope shattering in your chest.  It never manages to hurt any less.

“Here I thought you wanted to stay friends.  We were never going to bring it up.  And I was going to keep pretending you weren’t violating me, with your greedy eyes and your alone-time thoughts.”

“I don’t…” you start, the first word of defense you’ve offered up.  You don’t do that to him.  After the shirt, you never let it happen again.  Not even close.

“We weren’t going to talk about it,” he bulldozes over your hesitation.  “And I was going to keep ignoring it.  And we could have kept being friends, so long as I could have trusted you to do that.  Why did you have to say it?”

“Sometimes I can’t breathe around you.  It hurts too much.  I’m suffocating and the only thing I can do is cut my heart open.”

“Gansey’s going to be so pissed.”

“Huh?”

“So incredibly selfish, Lynch.  But since when do you ever think about consequences?  I shouldn’t have expected anything different.  Don’t you ever get tired of it?  Being such a fuck-up?”

“ _I think I’m in love with you_ ,” you hear your voice echo.  And this time, so does Adam.

He blows out a breath.  “Ha. Ha,” he says drily.  “What’s wrong with you?  That shit’s not funny to say, Lynch.”  The end of his pencil hits the nearest page in open agitation.  “It’s messed up.”

The silence is deafening.  He must feel something in it too, because he turns to you when it lingers past its welcome.  Your face apparently makes the confession you can’t spit out twice.

The muscles of his fine-boned face twitch and falter as he processes.  Annoyance gives way to disgust.  “Get out,” he hisses.

“Parrish.”  It sounds like _please_.  It sounds like _I’m sorry.  I take it back.  I never meant to hurt you.  I’ll swallow the words again if you’ll let me.  Forever.  Don’t do this.  Please don’t do this._

“Get the fuck out, Ronan!”

 


	29. wary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: kavinsky. non-con elements. horror themes.   
>  (see end note for more detailed warnings)   
> 
> 
>   
> 

**xxix.**  

You’re stumbling down the stairs with no memory of leaving the apartment.  Mind flickering on- and offline.  You’re sitting on his bed.  At the door.  Shivering on the landing.  Every moment is an incoherent flash, the afterimage of an unadjusted antenna picture.  Thoughts a high-pitched static blank.  Wavering and disjointed.  When your boots touch the ground, rough hands snatch you into the shadows.  You’re shoved against the wall.  Dropping through to a blackened abyss.

One of the massive seats in the dark of Kavinsky’s basement theater breaks your fall.  You’re a puppet with cut strings.  Limbs heavy with regret or something even less tractable.  His presence doesn’t surprise you anymore. 

“Should have known better than that, Lynch.”  He chuckles, flinging the white sunglasses from his face to the floor.  His eyes are black.  Hands stained red with blood.  Just like the specters from the tapestry.  The memory cleaves your awareness for a handful of seconds.  You hear the music pounding in your ears.  See Kavinsky drawing closer.  _Dream_ , you remind yourself.

“That was completely fucked.  You’re gonna have one less person to whack off in your Gansey circle-jerk tomorrow morning.”  His smile is venomous.  “But don’t worry, Princess.  I’ll take real good fucking care of you.” 

He moves in like a wolf, and all you can do is watch it happen.  Mouth pressing against your neck, wet and open.  A hand rucking up your shirt, hot like a brand against the bare skin of your abdomen.  This close, you can smell the sour stink of rot.

 _Stop,_ you snarl.  Or maybe you only think it.  Your brain is disconnected from your limbs, drifting through an ocean of quicksand.  Hindering your thoughts into a sluggish stream of sentiments essentially amounting to _no_.  Your muscles are weighted, useless.

“You gotta learn, Lynch.  Stop trying for all that fucking light bullshit.  Can’t you see?  This is where you belong.”  His words are scorching your ear.  One of his hands drops dangerously low against your back, searing a path of stark discomfort in its wake.  “In the darkness.  With me.”

 _Stop.  I don’t want…  Not like this.  Not you.  Never you._   Teeth scraping neck.  Hands dipping under waistband.  Dragging forward. 

 _Fucking fight back_ , you think.  Your body doesn’t cooperate, incapacitated by some nightmare facsimile of that damn red poison.  Your skin blisters under his touch. 

His fingers are like claws digging into your hips.  The thought nudges reality, and that’s what they become.  Sharp as a night horror’s talons, slicing your skin like butter.  The shriek of one of the creatures rends the air. 

The shadows grow in the corners.  You’re no longer confident you’re walled into this room.  Kavinsky pulls away, grin twisted and wicked and impossible.  Full of too many teeth.  “What did I tell you?” he taunts. 

The ominous possibility of the moment warps.  A breath leaves him like it’s been punched out.  His mouth parts again, but what spews forth isn’t the antagonism you’re anticipating.  It’s blood the color of pitch.  Something tugs him back, and a wet noise of pain follows.  There’s a pool of blackness soaking through his white tank.  His body gives another jerk before toppling over into a loose puddle of limbs.

Revealing the monster behind him, talons extended and glistening with fresh death.  The night horror closes in, fearsome and strange.  It looks less hostile than you expect.  Less predatory.  More curious.  Did it just…  _Protect_ you?  Or was he just first in line? 

You can’t afford to take any chances with something that eviscerated Kavinsky right before your eyes.  _Get away from it_.  Your muscles are still unresponsive, to your unending terror.  A nightmare of dread.  _Nightmare.  Shit.  That’s right._  

What kind of dream is this?  Lacking the gauge of Orphan Girl to guide you now, you can’t be sure…  What’s the risk you’ll bring something with you?  Did you fall asleep at Monmouth or the church?  The answer slips through the cracks of your memory when you reach for it.  Panic wells in its place.  At Monmouth, a closed door and plenty of space will provide Gansey a buffer of safety from whatever you take back.  Parrish has no such protection. 

The monster leans in, head level with yours.  You don’t know whether to watch the claws or the beak for signs of attack.  It looses a metallic screech, smoldering putrid breath billowing across your skin.  It could kill you in an instant.  You need to wake the fuck the hell up before it gets the opportunity.  _Don’t take anything back.  Don’t bring anything with you_.  Your eyes drift shut.  _Wake up_ , you command gently.

The high ceiling of Monmouth welcomes you back to reality.  Nothing new but the cold sweat and the adrenaline crashing through your heart to the tempo of a maddening electronic beat.  And the blessed ability to move your own limbs.  You rip the headphones from your ears.  Your pulse doesn’t slow.

You fumble blindly for your phone, the electronic glow of the screen biting into the darkness.  There’s a 2:03 A.M. conversation with Matthew crowning a list decorated with missed calls from Declan and Gansey.  Your eyes slide to the time.  _4:47_ _A.M_ _._ Your stomach lurches, conjuring the remnants of that first nightmare.  Matthew.  The mask.  The dismantling.

 _Why in the fucking ass-hell did you go back to sleep after that?_   Like exhaustion had granted you any choice in the matter.  Lot of good it did you.  Maybe a shitty hour of rest—the rest just pain and horror.  And you’re awake now.  Unable to shake the memory of Parrish’s voice telling you to get out of his life forever.  The need to burn a dead man’s touch from your skin.

A tremor rocks through you and doesn’t stop.  What a bitter relief, that you didn’t you crash at St. Agnes tonight.  You’re thankful you didn’t put Adam at risk.  Glad for the solitude.  There’s a greedy part of you that thinks seeing him—the _real_ him—might soothe the wounds that glimpse of hell opened up.  Your better sense understands the way your vulnerability manifests.  You’re more likely to cut him with your scars than anything else.  And you’re not even sure you could bear to look at him right now. 

The Barns is calling.  Home—the only place you’ll be truly alone.  Able to leverage the distraction of physical labor to drown your thoughts.  For once, you need the silence. 

_Don’t you ever get tired of it?_

You do.  You really fucking do.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More on the non-con elements: 
> 
>   * nightmare kavinsky makes an appearance to taunt ronan and touches him while he's immobilized (above the belt & is interrupted)
>   * to skip: read the first four paragraphs then from paragraph ten ("his fingers are like claws") to the end 
> 



	30. warmth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **[Notes on Canon Compliance]**   
>  The timeline of this fic has been/is going to continue to deviate somewhat from canon.  _Why?_ Well, under close inspection TRK (a) starts roughly 1.5 weeks after BLLB (b) takes place over less than six days (c) spans October then November _then October_ ~~because what are months~~.  So yes, I know my stretching out the timeline to something that feels more natural to me is blatantly incorrect.  But I’m doing it anyway.   
>    
> 

**xxx.**

Black fabric clings to your tacky skin, just shy of uncomfortable.  It’s a good fifteen degrees warmer than October has any right to be.  Like the weather woke up that morning and decided summer wasn’t done after all.  But it’s an open invitation to dick around outside Monmouth while you wait out the eternity Parrish’s shift takes to end.

Somewhere amid the shared lunch breaks at Boyd’s and a growing cache of hours tallied at St. Agnes, Adam’s cemented himself as your favorite routine.  Now that you’ve worked most of the stupid out of your system, it comes much easier to spend time together, just as best friends.  The way it was supposed to stay.  And he seems happy to allow it.  Doesn’t complain about the food.  Hasn’t insisted on paying you back every time.  Never kicks you out of his space.  One shining light in a sea of uncertainties.   

Chainsaw lands noisily atop the fence at your back.  The bustle of her wings stirs a welcome breeze into the still air.  You slant your neck to eye her.  “Where’d you run off to, you little shit?”

She regards you with an expectant head tilt until you shed the headphones.  “ _Krahk_ ,” she then responds, which isn’t an answer at all.  You scoff, listening for whatever she thinks is worth your attention.  The sputter of a tired engine promptly solves the mystery.  A pleased smirk creeps across your face.  _Fucking finally_.  As Parrish’s shitbox nears the factory, though, it fades.  A soft rhythm escapes from the rolled-down window—brushing against your memory, feather-light and teasing.  You’re on your feet before you even realize it.

They carry you toward the car without your permission.  You’re untethered, a satellite forever getting tangled up in his orbit.  At this distance, the last refrain of the final song is plain and sure as day.  _Tell me that you’re all right… I don’t want to fight._   Your heart swells, lodging itself firmly within your throat.  It’s hard to swallow around.  _Jesus._   You can’t tell _what_ you’re feeling—but there’s sure a fuckass lot of it.

Your hand gravitates to the roof of the Hondayota, and you lean down to speak through the open window.  “Man, I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this before…  But you have _shit_ taste in music.”

Shifting the car into park, Adam huffs out a laugh.  When he looks at you, his joyful smile is every bit as bright as the sun.  Full of everything you want for him.  _Good_ , you think, _it’s okay to joke about_.  And what a fucking relief that is.  Because it’s the surest way you can defuse tension.  Because he’s not upset about it.  Because… 

“Yeah, I guess there’s just no accounting for taste.  Some asshole broke into my car and left that in the tape deck.”

You offer him a jackal’s grin.  “What an inconsiderate shithead.”

His brow twitches, clearly trying to figure out whether you’re referring to you or to him.  Then deciding it doesn’t matter.  “I don’t know.  Here I thought he wouldn’t bother listening to anything that hadn’t chosen a life of crime against eardrums.  But then somehow, this exists.  And I actually like it.  Who would have guessed?”

You drum out a short beat against the warm metal.  “Okay.  I _have_ to ask.  How many times have you listened to the murder squash song now?”

A scheming smirk stretches across his face.  The car spits out the tape in question with a distinctive click.  Adam flips it over and waves it a few times in idle contemplation.  “Lynch, I know you’ve probably owned an MP3 player since you could walk.  So maybe what I’m about to say’ll surprise you?  But there’s this useful thing.  Been around a long time.  Has its own button and everything.”  He slides the tape back into the deck.  Hits the fast-forward button with his middle finger before the hissing can resolve to sound. 

“You bitch,” you remark cheerily.  Poker face glued in place, he holds your gaze.  But you can see the mischief working at the corners of his mouth and eyes. 

“Better not let Blue hear you say that word.  You know she might actually bite you.”  His lips pinch.  “On second thought, _please_ let her.  Just make sure you wait ‘til I’m around to see it.”  He still hasn’t dropped his hand.  It seems like he’s waiting for something.

“Like I’m afraid of ankle biters.  Who the shit do you take me for, Parrish?”

“Maybe someone your own size, then?”  He lifts a dramatic eyebrow. 

Your face heats.  _What the fuck?_   You don’t know what the hell he means by that, but you can guarantee your thoughts are veering off in the wrong damn direction.  Your inability to enjoy these simple moments without your feelings flooding in to corrupt them is the definition of frustration.  They’re so pervasive, you can’t seem to control it any more than you could tell your heart to stop beating.  You’ve never been one to do things halfway.

Not once dropping eye contact, Adam jabs the other button and lets the tape play.  The retro-synth introduction of the third track flares to life from the speakers.  “Well, fuck me running.”

His face scrunches with laughter.  Between that biting remark and the simmering vulnerability brought about by this revelation, your cheeks are on fire.  He still listens to the mixtape.  Listens to it enough that he’s memorized the precise time needed to skip the murder squash song.  And he’s joking about it.  Not in a _look at this pathetic asshole_ kind of way, either.  In a pleasant way that makes him seem almost okay with it.

Smile lingering, he kills the engine and cranks up the window.  When you refuse to budge, he has no qualms about shoving you across the pavement with his door.  The moment he climbs out of the car, Chainsaw lands at his feet.  The bird stares up at him expectantly.  “ _Brek_?” she inquires.  Adam holds out a forearm in response.  She doesn’t hesitate to flap over to it, gently arranging her talons around his skin.  It’s a level of care she never exerts for you.  You can relate.  Parrish’s long fingers stroke at the raven’s feathers.  You can’t drag your eyes away.

“Why are you out here?”

You snort.  “Gansey’s in there…  _Gansey_ ing all over the place.”

“That’s… less helpful than you seem to think it is.”

You wave away the criticism.  “You know how he gets.  Stress-obsessing.”

“Guess we probably shouldn’t keep him waiting then.  The longer he’s at it, the worse he gets.”  He turns away, taking your bird with him. 

“Whatever you say, Parrish.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No update next week — enjoy Pynch week!


	31. brothers

**xxxi.**

Gansey sags against the sofa, a beacon of quiet frustration.  Lacking direction after so much wild wonder and discovery _grates_.  You snort at his casual inattention.  Perhaps he’s learned how counterproductive asking you to make room tends to be.  You tug your feet from under him and toss them across his lap.  Gansey says nothing of the adjustment.  Just tips his overflowing journal against your jeans, concentration unruffled.  One of his hands hovers near his mouth.  The other, flipping pages with a growing air of discontent.  The pressure is oddly comforting.  Grounding.

He picks the moment your eyes slide shut to speak.  “Are you sleeping here tonight?”  _Flip._  

“See, when you say it like that, I know it’s a trap.”  _Flip._  

“Are you?”  _Flip_.

“Is it the _sleep_ or the _here_ that’s getting your panties in a twist?”

The journal closes with an unimpressed slap.  Your eyes slit open, revealing a Gansey in the throes of visible displeasure.  He looks ready to lecture you on the intricate nuances of your attitude problem.  “Ronan.”

“The fuck do you want me to say, Gansey?  I’m asking you.”

“Declan’s been calling for you,” he doubles back.  Deftly evading both questions at once.

“I know.”  It’s why you’ve abandoned your piece of shit phone to the confines of Monmouth.  You’re about to say as much when Gansey cuts you off. 

“So you _know_ he calls _me_ when trying for you remains an exercise in complete futility.  I have to keep informing him you’re not home.”  One question down—but the implicit _why_ is still up in the air.  “Because you never are anymore.  Do you know how many times now I’ve peeked into your bedroom, only to find an empty bed?”

You brush a lazy hand across your scalp.  The light burr of hair there bristles back, beckoning you to shave it again.  “I thought I told you to stay the hell out of my room, man.”

“Where have you been going all this time, Ronan?” he exhales.  “Where are you sleeping?  _Do_ you even sleep?”  Funny how he says it like you ever sleep when you _are_ here.  “Are you out on the streets?  Racing again?  Drinking yourself stupid?  Are you with Adam?  Please.  Just _tell_ me.  So I don’t have to drive myself utterly insane with the endless possibilities of where you are, what you’re doing, whether or not you’re okay.”

 _What in the whole and actual fuck?_  Where does he get off… mothering you like this?  Why does he think he needs to?  Most importantly:  how can the dumbshit not _know_ you’ve been splitting your hours between Parrish and the Barns?  Seriously.  It doesn’t make any sense.  Has neither of you even mentioned it in passing?  Or has Gansey just not been paying attention?

It doesn’t sit right at all—that you may be so caught up in a world that’s drawn beyond Gansey.  Excluding him but for the planned meetings and Glendower excursions.  An unpleasant difference that’d have been downright unheard of months ago.  For so long, it had been _Ronan-and-Gansey_.

“And now you’re not even taking your phone with you.  It’s not like I possess this grand delusion that you might answer your phone if I actually needed you to.   But I could _pretend_ the possibility existed before.”

He idly traces the seams of the leather.  “Please.  Just… take it with you.  Just _tell me_ where you are.  And stay here tonight.”  The words are tacked on like an afterthought, but it’s obvious they’re at least half the point he’s been working himself up to.

“Why?”  That it could matter so much to him is incomprehensible.

“I miss you, Lynch.”

“We literally just spent four hours together.  What, does the time not count if Parrish is here?  Or is it Sargent that’s the problem?”  Your arched eyebrow is thirsting for a fight, but Gansey is having none of it.

“We used to spend entire _days_ together.  You used to actually live here— _stay_ here.  You used to be at school.”  A sigh escapes him then, one that carries an improbable amount of grace.  “I wish you would come to class.” 

Yours is rife with violence.  “Did fucking Declan put you up to this?”

“Believe it or not, Ronan, Declan is not the only person in the universe with a stake in your wellbeing.  I want you to graduate.  I want you to have options.  I want you to come to class because I’m selfish and I _miss seeing you there_.”

His elbows sink to your shins, hands cupping his face in a grave display of consideration.  The untidy breath he releases nicks much of his composure on its way out.  “We’re running out of time.”

His journal spills to the floor in the ferocity of your retreat.  Gansey winces, staring like he can’t fathom how it got there.  You’ve fashioned a defensive curl against the couch arm.  A veritable ball of _DANGER – DO NOT TOUCH_.  “Is that what all this shitfuckery is about?  You’re leaving me next year?”

Anxiety and misery flit across his face in equal measure.  More than you’d expect his guilt to fuel.  Which is particularly rich of the bastard, given he’s the one rubbing your nose in his impending departure in the first place.

“Still planning on taking Parrish with you, too?” you snarl.  Because the ache abrading your pulse demands the answer.

The moment fractures, and ugly doubt tells you you’re having two entirely different conversations.  Gansey is overrun with alarm, caught like a conspirator at a crime scene.  Your eyes narrow.   _What has he done?  What has Adam agreed to?  Why couldn’t Parrish just fucking tell me himself?_ Then the horror in his face clears.  He frowns.  “No, Ronan.  Adam will attend the Ivy League of his choice in the fall.  As he’s always planned to do.”

“And you?”

“I don’t want to discuss this right now.  What I want to know is that you’re…”  He swallows, hard and hesitant.  “That you’re going to be _okay_ without me here.”

Your mouth falls open, presumably to eject some hurtful bile you would both immediately regret.  You’re smarting from the nasty reminder that—even if everything weren’t guaranteed to fall to shit—Parrish is, above all else: _running, running, running_.  Away from all this.  From Virginia.  From you.

“Damn it, Ronan,” he intervenes.  “I _know_ you don’t need me here.  I don’t need you to spell it out.  But I worry.  Christ.  You’re my best friend.”

 _Brother_ , you amend.  In the fleeting silence, you’re certain he does the same. 

“I’m allowed to have concern.  I’m allowed to want to know your future is headed in a positive direction.  To want to know that you do, in fact, plan to have one.”

That shutters any smart-ass response you had queued up.  Rabid indignation stirs in its stead.  Does this asshole really think you’re that selfish?  That poor of an excuse for a brother and decent human being?  If you willingly put Matthew in jeopardy, just because you couldn’t deal with how fucking damaged you are…

Is that what he believes?  _Jesus Mary and a rusty bucket of shit_.  That night was a _mistake_.  Will he never let it go?

The mess of outrage is at the bitter edge of escape, when rude understanding digs in its fangs.  _He doesn’t know_.  Gansey doesn’t know your brother is a dream.  That he’s yours.  That any danger to you equals an inherent hazard to Matthew.   Your throat clenches.

How is this your reality?  You, here, _apart_.  With so many fucking secrets hidden away from him.  Most of them unintentional.  Whether that makes it better or worse, you don’t know—but the majority were shared with Adam.  Ever since Greenmantle.  Well before that, actually.

Shithell, you _hate_ lying.  This… this _situation_ has snowballed to a such an extent, it’s fucking fundamentally dishonest.  The realization sits prickling and uncomfortable.

But where would you even begin?  Dispelling the secrets would mean divulging that Parrish already knows them, has known them.  Underscoring in neon fucking lights how much your relationship has changed in Gansey’s absence.  How much yours and Gansey’s has changed in yours.

“I do.  Plan to have one.”  The words are soft, halting.

He pushes on like you _didn’t_ just take an eternity too long to confirm your continued will to live.  “And what is it you want to do?”

“ _Damn it, Gansey_ ,” you fire back, mimicking his tone from earlier.  “I get enough of this fucking shit from Declan.  I don’t need you riding my ass too.  I’m not going to college.  I don’t know how many fucking times I need to say it before you all decide to listen to the goddamn words coming out of my mouth.  I motherfucking _hate_ school.  And I don’t need to pay a load of pretentious-ass, cock-guzzling dick tips to tell me I’m not going to get anywhere in life.” 

Gansey cracks a smile despite himself.  “Fair enough, Ronan.  College isn’t an absolute necessity.  Though I would really like you to leave the opportunity open if you change your mind.”

A sneer is the only thing you have to offer him in response. 

“Just tell me you have alternate options you’re considering, then.  You can’t live off your trust fund in perpetuity.  You need an income.  And something productive to occupy your time, so you don’t lean on your more objectionable habits.”

You choose to ignore his insults.  “This is my home, Gansey.  I’ve got the farm.  I never wanted to leave it in the first place.  And maybe it’s possible now, that I don’t have to.”  _There_.  He can have his own damn secret.

Gansey nods like he’s taking the suggestion seriously.  Contemplating—which you honestly didn’t expect.  You anticipated a chiding _be serious, Lynch_ , if you’re being perfectly frank.

“Just how much do you think you actually know about the science of agriculture, Lynch?  Farming isn’t all fun and games.  There’s more to it than throwing feed at livestock and playing in the mud.”

 _And there it is._   “Hey, fuck you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy the subtle Gansey angst. I'll never be over the fact that he knew he was going to die the whole time. And that Ronan never did.


	32. unwelcome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> cw: discussion of canon-aligned abuse/non-con events  
> 
> 
>   
> 

**xxxii.**

“Ronan?”  For a muddy moment, the word refuses to register.  It drives a hole through that liminal space between awareness and sleep.  In the heavy-limbed vacuum left behind, your tires are spinning.  You can’t tell whether you were torn from slumber or only just drifting off.

“Hmm?”  It’s all you can muster the energy for, muscles still hostage to a thick blanket of sedation.

“Did you…”  His sigh seeps hesitation into the air.

Time passes.  You can’t tell how much.  You don’t know anything but the sound of his voice.  And the awareness that he hasn’t broken the silence.  You risk another hum of acknowledgment.

His voice is quiet, like he’s not even sure he wants the question to reach you.  “Did you ever hook up with Kavinsky?” 

That wakes you right the hell up.  _What the hell and fuck?_  “Jealous?” you hear yourself grumble, because you’re a self-sabotaging shitbrain.

Then your tactless brain reboots, scrambling to continue before he can respond with the vitriol such an idiotic comment deserves.  “Seriously though.  What the ever-loving mother _shit_ would make you think that?  Kavinsky was a fucking world-class douchenozzle.”  You pinch the bridge of your nose hard enough to wound.  Though you doubt it’ll hinder the headache this topic is unraveling.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Adam allows.  “But…”  His reluctance guarantees you’ll hate the answer.  “Look, I know you spent a ton of time with him, that weekend we were in D.C.”  He sounds so tired.  And not in the usual _eighteen years of sleep deprivation_ kind of way.  More like something’s eroding his soul.  A tired that sleep won’t fix.

It’s that, you think, that keeps you from scoffing your way out of this conversation.

“I mean, it’s not like you two didn’t have a lot in common, right?  The street racing, the drinking, the dreaming.  He had magic like you.  Like your dad.  You weren’t alone with him here.  That probably counted for something, didn’t it?  And he looked at you like…  Like he wanted to devour you.  It would have made sense.”  The edges of Adam’s voice have been carefully sanded away.  Any other time, you might try to focus on what that means.

Too bad all your brainpower is occupied, short-circuiting around his implication that you and Kavinsky belonged together.  It tears into you like barbed wire.  Leaves you torn and drained.  How you wish he thought a little more of you.  That you deserve better than that—because you think you do.

Apparently _he_ thinks you’re fated to end up in a dysfunctional, damning relationship with someone as sharp and bitter as you are.  Two Molotovs with lit fuses and nothing but a matter of time ‘til one burns the other to rubble in a destructive blaze of glory.

“Why the fuck are you asking me this right now?” you grit out.

“Is that a yes, then?”

You let the silence take the room.  Your heart is busy tying your stomach into knots.  The crisp rustle of Adam rolling over on his mattress cuts through the quiet.  Finally he speaks, reluctant and strained.  “You said his name in your sleep.  You were muttering some shit.  Then you said ‘shut up, K’ and…”

_And what?_  

You can’t even remember if you _were_ dreaming, much less any details.  But it would make a twisted kind of sense.  The cruel facsimile of Adam that’s haunted you for months has all but disappeared.  When the nightmare compulsion forcing you to bare your guts faded, it took with it his untempered disdain.  Your friend’s steadily taken his place. 

But Kavinsky’s taken it upon himself to pick up the slack.  Gleefully drawing parallels between your unrequited feelings for Parrish and his predatory obsession with you.  Recognizing the truth seeded in that point had been the catalyst for attempting to drown yourself in alcohol.  Your regret then had been thick enough to cut out, and the night horrors had tried. 

You’d _never_ wanted to be responsible for provoking that sick swell of discomfort in Adam.  Seeing it on clear display, written all over his face?  _Fucking shit.._.  He deserved—deserves—so, so much more than that.  To never be hurt by the people he cares about again.  It’s why you were so adamant about pulling away.

Truth be told, you’ve been slipping.  A lot.  Objectively.  Subjectively.  All around, really.  _But things are so good now_.  Maybe you need to come to terms with the fact that you’re a little too selfish to accomplish it.  And maybe you don’t have to, so long as you can still keep him safe.

“Obviously a bad dream, then.”  Your voice is disgustingly hoarse.  Good God, you fucking despise talking about anything that makes you this vulnerable.  These revealing conversations are not something Ronan Lynch allows.

But the pressing need to set the record straight claws at your insides.  He’s already assumed the worst of you, after all.  If you hold your silence, he’ll take it as an affirmative.  There’s something about the muffled darkness—staring at the low ceiling, unable and unwilling to see Parrish’s expression—that makes you want to answer.

“It was never gonna be me and him.  There was nothing on my end, ever.  He—”  The battle with the lump in your throat ends in a transparently audible gulp.  Stopping there is half the way to a lie, though, and you feel a masochistic need to tell him the rest.  “There was on his.”

You couldn’t begin to describe the precise brand of silence that accompanies a stomach dropping.  But you swear you hear the sound of Adam’s as he parses the meaning left lying between your words.  “What the hell?  Ronan, did he…”  There’s a tremor in his voice that has you questioning the validity of every decision you’ve ever made that’s delivered you here.  To this point of failure wherein Adam sounds like _that._

“No!  Nothing like— _God_.  No.  He didn’t…  No.  It was.  It’s like you said.  We _made sense_ together,” you spit.  You think it might be unfairly harsh to use his own words against him, when you’re discussing something you suspect dances the line of abuse.  But fuck, you don’t know how to talk about this.  “Apparently, he thought so too.”  You don’t know how to make him understand.  _You_ still don’t.

“It was… nothing, probably.  I don’t even know why I fucking brought it up.  I just didn’t want you to think…”

“Ronan,” Adam whispers.  And you hate the gentleness in his voice.  Like you’re fucking made of glass.  He never treats you like that.  It makes you want to destroy something.  A hundred somethings.  “What did he do?”

“Fuck, I don’t know.  It was stupid.  I’m being stupid about this.  I should have never said anything.”  You know you won’t be able to fucking explain it right.  But what even is _right_?  You’re torn between not making a big deal out of it—because it sounds so goddamned stupid when you try to put it into words—and trying to illustrate how big of a thing it was.

“ _Ronan._ ”

_What did Kavinsky do to you, really?_

Manipulated you.  Constantly trampled over your boundaries.  Belittled you at every turn.  Made you feel relentlessly shitty about who you were.  About your sexuality, in the very same breath he used to leer at you.  Brought you into drugs.  Slipped you one much stronger than you’d consented to use.  Stroked your bare tattoo when you couldn’t fight back.  When he knew what you wanted.  What you _didn’t_.

“Jesus shit, all right.  You saw how he was.  Fucker knew I couldn’t leave until I got Gansey his car back.  Wasn’t shy about using it to his advantage, either.  Imagine two full days of that.  Plus a shit-ton of alcohol, and… drugs.  He slipped me a pill.  Touched me after he drugged me, when I couldn’t move and was passed out shirtless across the hood of his fucking car.”

Hearing it on the outside of your head, you still think it sounds like nothing.  But it didn’t _feel_ like nothing.  It made you want to wrench off your skin, just to rid yourself of his touch.  You felt so damn powerless.

You never actually had to come to terms with it.  Just ignored the problem, and eventually it went away.  Kavinsky was too busy manufacturing much larger, much more important issues for you to deal with.  Confronting him about that never became a priority while he was destroying the ley line and threatening your brother’s life like a fucking madman.

Then he was gone.  And the only thing you had to come to grips with was the fact that he was dead.  And that, had things gone even a little differently, that could have easily been you.

_Fuck_.  This isn’t a conversation you ever wanted or expected to have.  There’s a twinge of doubt surfacing, warning you that it’s not the sort you’re _meant_ to have.  You tell yourself again that Adam started it.  He opened this line of questioning; he _asked_ for an answer.  You’re not overstepping your bounds.

Even though it’s possible the last thing he wants to hear is you, talking about guys _that_ way.  Not that he’s ever made the type of disparaging remarks that’d erase all doubt whether he finds it altogether repulsive.  He’s much too good a person for that.  The polar opposite of the dickbag you’re discussing.  Whose wandering eyes and wandering hands you’re reliving.  Worsened and remade entirely anew by the nightmare you suffered through.

“It wasn’t even like he _actually_ groped me or anything.  He just.  Creepy motherfucker.  Piece of shit thought consent was optional.  He didn’t care about himself or anything else—just took what he wanted.  I wonder, sometimes… how close a thing it could have been.”

“He kidnapped your brother,” Adam adds weakly.

“Yeah,” you murmur.  Neither of you puts words to the second half of the thought.  That nothing seemed off-limits in his perilous war for your attention.  If he didn’t think attempted murder was out of line, nothing might have been.

You can feel the aching force of Adam’s thoughts in the raw silence that takes over.  You wonder what he’s thinking so hard about.  Finally hazarding a glance in his direction, you can see his face in the dark looks _furious_.  “What the fuck is this conversation, Parrish?” you sigh.

He never responds.  The air is dense, glutted with some unidentifiable tension.  You feel vaguely ill.  Wrong.  Off-center.  Like someone’s shifted away a vital part of _right_ , and the delicate house of cards is about to come crashing down.  Because you can’t figure out which one it was.  Or how to put it back.  Your eyes close against the mounting disquiet.

Several deep breaths later, and Parrish still hasn’t made a sound.  Your mouth runs dry.  Unable to persuade yourself to look at him again, you sit up abruptly.  “I’m—”  The need to clear your throat gets in your way.  “Damn it.  Not gonna be able to go the fuck back to sleep.  I’m heading out to the Barns.  See you tomorrow, Parrish.”

The door clicks shut, the sound putting a final wall between you and his reticence.  You can’t help but feel you’ve left some critical piece of yourself behind.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I know many of you have vastly different interpretations of what went down in TDT, and that is fair enough. I’m going off these two excerpts and[ Maggie’s tumblr post](http://maggie-stiefvater.tumblr.com/post/92278352406/ok-ill-take-the-bait-how-fucked-up-is-kavinsky) to frame mine:
> 
>   * _Then sliding down his spine, tensing every muscle it moved over. The fuse inside him was burning to nothing, nothing at all. Ronan didn’t move. If he moved, the touch on his spine would stab him — a wound like this pill. No coming back._     — TDT Ch 44
>   * _The Devil. One thousand images were triggered by that single word, devil. Red skin, white sunglasses, his brother Matthew’s terrified eyes in the trunk of a car. Dread and shame together, thick enough to vomit up. Ronan was uneasily reminded of his recent nightmares._     — TRK Ch 18
> 



	33. nachtmahr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: horror themes  
> 

**xxxiii.**

The forest is _off_ tonight, a truth you feel like a coming storm.  It’s something in the prickle of the air.  A tilted, inside-out peculiarity congealing on your skin.  The gloom’s sketched from dim light and long shadows, all grainy and out of focus.  But Parrish is vivid—fierce and magnetic at your side.  Head held high against the eerie imbalance.  Eyes bright and fixed on the faulty color of the sky.  Hues of crimson pulse and whirl overhead, a spectacle that’s difficult to look at straight on. 

There’s a darkness brewing beneath the fog in the far reaches of the trees.  Familiar.  Menacing.  It’s the shadow that has infiltrated your dreams.  Blacker than midnight, carrying that same sure sense of desolation.  Lurking below the surface, coming for Orphan Girl, seething in the corners of Kavinsky’s basement…  It finds you again and again, acting the ominous bystander or malevolent threat.  Often enough for you to know its presence means nothing good.  And this time, it looks restless and alive.

The very thought spurs it into action.  A piece of the night breaks away, spilled ink slithering along the ground.  The sound’s strangely eroded; the rustle of leaves written and rewritten, disjointed and impossible.  It lifts when it nears—snaking, probing, full of curiosity.  The shadow races forward before you can react.  Curling up, trailing a line across Adam’s chest.  His breath catches.  Eyes watering, exhalation unsteady…  Whatever that darkness is, it’s hurting him. 

Reflex throws your hand out, hauling him toward you.  Protecting Adam is second nature.  Muscle memory.  The tendril shies away like a scolded animal.  But it draws the warmth back with it, the sudden chill standing your hairs on end.  The mist churns threateningly in the background. 

Adam’s breath is still out of rhythm.  Shirt ragged at the point of contact.  Torn, like his skin underneath.  He’s bleeding—badly.  _Jesus fucking Christ_.  Your free hand gravitates to the wound.  “Parrish.”  His name is a riot of feelings too large to contain.  He looks down at the blood.  Up at you.  Then to the trees, where the spindle of shadow sidles closer once more.

_Shit_.  “Come on!”  His brows furrow in an unambiguous show of confusion.  But it’s not like you have the time or the answers for questions.  Thank fuck, tugging his arm seems to get the message across well enough.  He’s running of his own accord a few paces out.

But the forest is in no mood to cooperate.  The creeping sense of claustrophobia screams the opposite, really.  _How the ass-hell are you supposed to get out of this?_ The trees blur by, identical in the high mist.  _You need to get Parrish out_.

“If you have any ideas…” you gasp, ducking under a looming branch.  “Now would be a great fucking time, _Magician_.”  Darkness roils at every turn, tarnishing all the forlorn corners.  The only outlet’s a jagged path ahead of you, steadily dwindling.  Length stretching toward a destination unknown.

“Ronan, stop.”  Adam seizes your wrist, dragging you to a stumbling halt.  _What the fuck?_

“What the fuck, Parrish?”  You do your best to steer him into motion, but he doesn’t allow it.  Shoves you back when you try again, tripping you over an errant root.  “We have to get out of here,” you pant.  You’re sure your eyes are wild, but you don’t know how to reason with him.  You don’t know what’s _wrong._   “That thing is on our asses.  It’s going to—”

Looking closely at Adam, the plea wilts away.  Something’s… not right.  Possibly one of his eyes seems wrong, but the thought skitters away as soon as you brush against it.  Then something coils around your throat, robbing you the chance to respond.  And you realize maybe it was _you_ it was after all along. 

The strength in the darkness is surprising.  For something that appears for all the world like nothing—shadow without presence—it feels like sheer corded muscle.  Hard and unforgiving.  It’s wrapped itself around you before you can blink, yanking you to your knees.  Your left hand digs into the ground, seeking an anchor.  Adam stares with interest.  You have the strangest sense that he pushed you toward it on purpose.

An airless moment passes before the pain catches up to you.  It’s a _bitch_ when it does.  Singeing like fire and acid, it’s no damn wonder it burnt through Parrish’s shirt in an instant.  Every molecule in contact with the stupid cockthistle piece of shit is _imploding_.  Every inch of everything in you, positively begging for escape.  But the signals aren’t making it to your arms or legs—all of it overridden by the searing pain.  A miserable cry is the only thing that makes it out.  Adam’s face clears when he hears it.  He’s back to himself, and flooded with fear.  “Ronan?”

You’ve got no patience left for yourself.  It’s too late, and you know it.  “Go,” you grit out.  “You have to get out of here!”  You’re certain now, that the darkness just wanted you. 

It shouldn’t be possible to grasp a thought from a shadow—but _possible_ ’s an abstract concept rapidly losing any ties it ever had to reality.  And the understanding had to come from somewhere.  That it wants to… _undo_ you.  But you still won’t wager Adam’s safety.  He needs to leave.

Listening as well as he usually does, Parrish sinks to his knees.  Moving closer.  Hand pressing against your arm.  His eyes dart between yours, face collapsing.  You aren’t sure you’ve ever seen him look so sad.  You’re sure you never want to again. 

“Get the fuck out of here!” you shout.  Try to shout.  Your voice comes out like the crunch of gravel under tires. 

You’re dimly aware of tears tracking down your cheeks.  The vice grip around your neck flexes, tilting back experimentally.  You choke against it, the red and black protests of your oxygen-short pulse adding to the suffering.  This is the worst physical pain you’ve ever felt.

Until you realize it’s too fucking late.  There’s no way Adam can escape, and that makes everything infinitely worse.  You’re both surrounded now.  A wall of pure black rises up behind him, cresting like a malicious wave.  A terrible sound crawls from your lips.  You don’t want to watch this.  You _can’t_ fucking watch this. 

Your eyes slip closed.  His grip tightens around your skin. 

You don’t have it in you to watch Adam die.  _Wake up_ , you beg.  _Please.  Please don’t make me see this_.  “Ronan,” he says again, low and urgent. 

_Not the neck_ , you think belatedly.  Then the darkness takes you under.

 


	34. remnant

**xxxiv.**

You collide into awareness like a car crash, breath six steps ahead of you.  Stuck gasping, paralyzed in that dreadful way that can only mean you’ve brought something with you.  If it was your injuries—if it was the shadow itself—you’ll be dead before your limbs unstick.  Dread leaches into your marrow.

Did that grim presence leave its memento?  Are you bleeding to death where you lie?  Pure instinct tells you no.  Everything’s cold, but you’re probably still in one piece.  To be fucking honest, you can’t feel much of anything until…  _There._   A band of pressure near your wrist, distant and unreal.  “Wake up.”  Something in you shifts, like the room settles back into place.  Or like you do.  Then, warmth.  “Come on.”  Recognition.  The solid press of a hand curled around your arm.  Dream to reality.

Everything is Adam when your lids open.  And all you can hear is the white buzz of static and your raging, desperate denial.  Begging.  Pleading.  _No.  Goddamn it, nonono_ —  Your heart ices over, shards digging in and in.

He’s here.  He’s—fuck, he’s _here_.  This is the worst thing you’ve ever done.  Repulsion roars through you, a base need to get away.  From this terrible breach of consent, respect, of boundaries, friendship... of _Adam_ at his core.  Being trapped like this is worse, in a way.  Faced with the evidence of your most wretched mistake.  Unable to escape the sight of a false Parrish looking on in fabricated concern.

_What am I what am I please God what have I done_

For fuck’s sake, you knew you had the ability to create life.  You’ve had the existential crises of faith to match.  _What am I tell me what I am._   And the power to drag people into being, Matthew is living proof of that.  But Matthew…  Matthew didn’t exist before you brought him out.  Adam— 

Adam is a real person, in the real fucking world, with his own thoughts, feelings, and soul.  The boy you’ve fallen in love with, and you could never recreate that.  You would never want to try.

Even knowing you can never have him, you want _Adam_ —not whatever piss-poor substitute you’ve yanked from your dreams, stuffed only with whatever meager substance you’ve managed to give him.

This is the most blasphemous thing you’ve ever accomplished.  The worst possibility you can imagine.

Everything good between you—

The companionship, the hours spent basking in his presence, the unspoken understanding.  The good-natured ribbing, shared meals, the collection of nights spent on his floor.  The 3 A.M. conversations, sharp smirks, arched brows.  Reckless adventures, midnight drives, the warm sensation of that gnawing hole in your chest closing over.

—you’ve ruined it all in one fell swoop.  Adam will never forgive you for this.

A stinging sensation eats at your fingertips.  Expression working past the numbness to mirror the horror of your thoughts.  “Hey,” the thing wearing Parrish’s face says.  The panting of your ragged breath grows louder, harder.  Sharp and jagged.  The moment you regain control of your limbs, you shy away.  Disgust and rank fear and crushing nausea melt together, become the only thing your pulse can carry.

“Don’t,” you gasp.

“Ronan.”  He moves closer, reaching for you.  Performing a fair approximation of concern.

You twist away, ramming back against the wall in your haste.  “Don’t fucking touch me.”  His eyebrows drop.  You’re horribly aware you won’t be able to deal with the consequences of this.  Whatever they are—you’re unable to think past the black pit of _what the fuck have I done_.  But it requires zero imagination to know they’ll be unquestionably awful.  “Get the fuck away from me.”

Hurt passes over his features.  If this not-Parrish actually expected your open-armed welcome, he has another thing coming.  “Chill out, asshole.”  He sits back on his heels.  “It’s only me.  You were having a nightmare.”

Finally, finally, you’re able to tear your gaze from the wreckage.  Looking past him, you can see that you’re in the apartment above St. Agnes.  That Adam’s bed is empty, covers strewn aside like they were thrown off in a hurry.  The breath you release carries with it the entire weight of the world.

“Whose blood is this?”  Adam gestures vaguely toward your right arm, reluctance to approach again apparent.  You weren’t even aware it was there.  Now that he’s drawn attention to it, you feel it coating your hand, cold and unpleasant like the fear still pumping through your veins.

There’s a fraction of a second where you consider not answering.  But the word is out of your mouth before you can stop it.  “Yours.”

He’s quiet for a long moment.  “Killing me in your sleep, Lynch?  Damn, tell me how you really feel.”

You choke out a harsh breath.  The notion of you hurting Adam is patently absurd.  That he couldn’t be aware of this is even stranger.  “No.  Never that.”  You finally manage to look at him again.  He’s teasing, mouth curled into a mischievous half-smile.  But his eyes are worried, belying the casual joking.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” you mutter, abruptly rising to your feet.  Trying to escape the weird discomfort twisting through your stomach. 

Your pulse strains to recalibrate as you stare at your reflection in the bathroom mirror.  But you’re still affected by the nightmare.  By the mere thought…  That dark bloom of dread at the possibility of you having fashioned a counterfeit Parrish.  You can scrub the blood from your hands, but not from your heart.

Adam leans against the door frame, quiet and observant.  You can feel the questions ripening on the tip of his tongue.  _What happened, what’s the matter with you, what were you dreaming about?_

Why did you snarl at him like you were the shitbucket conductor of the Douche Express?  Especially when you’ve been so careful with your friendship for months?  It’s not like you two don’t fight.  It’s in your blood, to get a rise out of him.  To say the things you know will nettle.  Because he gives as good as he gets, you rarely regret doing so.  But you’re not… _that_.  You don’t treat him like that. 

His mouth parts, and you reckon it’s a toss-up whether what comes out is _what’s your problem_  or _are you okay._   Instead he blindsides you with, “Are you leaving?”

You glance at him in surprise.  Your fingers clench around the countertop.  “Were you wanting me to?”

“Of course not, idiot.”  Your silence invites him to continue.  “It’s just that running away from me seems to be sort of your thing.”

“That’s not…”  That’s not the point, but of course you can’t expect him to know that.  Don’t _want_ him to know that.  That it’s not _him_ you’re running away from, but your feelings for him.  You’re drowning in him.  You don’t want him to get caught in the cross-current.  “Man, fuck you.”

His hand lands on your shoulder.  And he even has the courtesy to ignore how hard you flinch.  When you don’t move to shove it away, he gives a comforting squeeze.  “Hey, I’m just calling it like I see it, Lynch.”

“Asshole,” you remark, but there’s a smile twisting your lips.

Your eyes meet in the mirror.  He’s wearing that expression you hate.  You can feel your knuckles turning white.  Adam had tried to bring it up again, multiple times.  You didn’t let him.  The only thing you accidentally let him get out was an apology.  _I’m sorry.  I never meant to…  You don’t…  You didn’t deserve that, Ronan.  You never belonged with him.  You deserve so much more._   That’s the look on his face right now.  The one you’ve come to cringe away from, always ready to tear into a new subject. 

His soft voice interrupts before you get the chance.  “Come on.  Lie down and go back to sleep.”

“Pretty sure that’s a terrible fucking idea, actually.”  The fact that you brought something back from a nightmare while Adam was in the room has not escaped you.  It just took a temporary backseat to all the other terrifying possibilities.  Now that he’s brought it up again, you think it might be in your best interest never to sleep again.

His expression shutters and his hand falls away.  Your shoulder feels too light, too cold.  Adam sounds abruptly exhausted.  “Whatever Ronan.  Do whatever the hell you want.”  And he turns, trudging over to the bed.  Collapses onto it, back toward you in the dark. 

You settle down quietly, half-expecting him to tell you to get the fuck out after all.  He doesn’t react.  Maybe he really doesn’t give a shit either way. 

Eventually, he rolls onto his back with a long-suffering sigh.  He seems surprised to see you on his floor.  Apparently he hadn’t been tracking your movements across the creaky wood like you’d suspected.  “Thought you weren’t staying?”

“I said I wasn’t going back to sleep,” you respond, plugging your headphones into the phone Gansey threw at you on your way out the door.  You’re thankful for the distraction now.  Something to hold your attention other than your thoughts.  Something to anchor you on this side of awake.  “Try to keep up, Parrish.”

A middle finger peeks out from under his thin blanket.  There’s a smirk spreading across his face, and it matches yours.

When you look over later, Adam’s fallen asleep.  He’s half-turned on his stomach, blanket rucked up under him.  One hand off the mattress, stretched in your direction.  You stare at it longer than you’d like to admit.

_Tell me how you really feel._

It’s increasingly impossible to pretend you can hide it.

 


	35. ignition

**xxxv.**

Several laws of physics and common decency are being broken here, and Parrish couldn’t give less of a shit.  There’s a ludicrous, physical impossibility in the fact that his driver’s seat is every bit as cramped as the backseat of the Pig.  Yet here you are, one leg flung out the open door just to make it bearable. 

Other than a grumbled _take up a normal amount of space_ , he’s impervious to your criticism.  You flash him a smirk through the windshield and stretch your arms out as far as they’ll go.  Adam rolls his eyes and raises the hood.  “Is Gansey really going to that party at Cheng’s this week?”  His question is half-muffled by the car’s screeches of protest.  The hood lists at an odd angle, like everything else about it.  Mismatched and unlikely.

“Think so, yeah.  He invited Sargent.”  Uncertainty chases the words.  Maybe you shouldn’t have brought that up.  Parrish probably doesn’t appreciate the reminder, and you’re sure you’ve violated some shitty bro ethics with Gansey.  But you’re sick and goddamn tired of pretending you don’t notice.  If they wanted it to be a secret, they should have done a fucking better job of hiding it.  “Dumbass keeps begging me to go,” you press on.  “Trying to guilt me into it.  It’s like he’s forgotten that shit doesn’t work on me.” 

“That so?”  He hums.  “I seem to recall personally guilting you into not failing out of junior year.”  A quick stab of vulnerability renders you speechless.  It’s the first time he’s spoken openly about it.  You, recognizing what he did for you and how important it was.  Acknowledging it and not letting it go to utter waste.  You don’t know where you’d be right now if you had lost Monmouth, lost Gansey, lost Adam.  Nowhere good.  Possibly nowhere at all.

“Let me hear it one more time.”  You’ve slouched so far down, you can see him through the gap, positioning his right ear over the car’s innards.  You let out a long, steady breath.  Force your fists to unclench.  Push at the clutch, twist the key.  The car gives up a reluctant whine; the engine petulantly refuses to turn over.  It’s a close thing, though—you’re sure it’d start if you gave it another go.  But Parrish, diligent as ever, doesn’t want to cause any more damage.

He continues like he never changed the subject.  “I mean, hell, you even went to the library.  When, in the entire history of Aglionby, has that ever happened?  I’m still surprised you didn’t burst into flames at the door.”  So he’s joking about that now, too.  Things have certainly changed.

“Would you look at that?  I’m suddenly remembering what an intolerable shitass you are.  Can’t for the life of me recall why I put up with you.  I guess you’re not so bad to look at.  But man, once you open your mouth, it’s just…”

“You shouldn’t talk about yourself like that, Lynch.”

You give the horn a sharp tap.  Enough for Adam to startle, narrowly avoiding knocking his head on the hood.

“Shithead,” he responds.  There’s a smile plastered on his face when he leans back down.  “So what, not even Gansey can talk you into it?”

“Pffft.  Like there’s a snowball’s chance in hell I’d willingly submit myself to that.  You?”

“Definitely not.”  The battery migrates to the ground, so you follow.  It’s not that the pavement’s more comfortable, exactly.  But you have a much clearer view of Adam working—all you need to make it worthwhile.

“I never did see the appeal of parties.  Not my idea of a good time, or a good use of it.”  Another hunk of metal and plastic leaves the engine compartment.  “Either there’s too much small talk or too much chaos.  Too many people.   Too high a cumulative net worth sardined into any one room for anything good to possibly happen.  And who _knows_ what Cheng’s idea of fun would be.”

You snort.  That’s one way of describing Aglionby parties, you suppose.  The kind you attended were heavy on the _too much money for consequences, too loud for thought, too many illegal substances to technically require it_ end of things.  Vodka and fire, hundred on the dash, tempting fate— _maybe this will be the night_.  Those were not good times. 

The memories are a poison you’re still trying to purge.  Definitely not the kind of party Henry Cheng will be throwing.  “I wouldn’t mind seeing you in a toga, though,” you tease, clawing to regain your balance.

Adam turns to glare.  “Asshole.  I’d like to see _you_ in one.”

“Fuck that.  I’d go naked before you’d catch me dead in that shit.”  _For the love of all fuck._ It slips out of your mouth before you can second-guess it like you damn well needed to. 

A bright red flush flares across Parrish’s cheeks.  His eyes stay resolutely fixed on the Hondayota.  _You stupid fuck-for-brains, now you’ve made him uncomfortable.  Why are you like this?_

“Guess it’s for the best you’re not going, then,” he says finally, voice flat.  Silence falls around you.  Afraid you’ll somehow make it worse, you just let the tension ebb and wane.  The collection of parts strewn across the asphalt quietly grows. 

Frustration prospers in the wake of your stupidity.  You should walk away before you dig yourself a bigger hole.  But _running away from me seems to be sort of your thing_ plays on repeat, mocking the instinct.  And you don’t want to leave.  What you want is to stop being an awkward piece of shit with a talent for snatching the wrong thing to say from an infinite sea of possibilities.  What you _want_ is Adam.

“Do you actually have any idea what you’re doing?”

“Yes, Ronan.”

“You sure?”

“In case you’ve somehow forgotten, I _am_ a mechanic.”  His lips quirk at the corners.  “I don’t need your questionable concern.  Just because you like to abuse cars in your free time, doesn’t mean you know anything about the car parts.”

“Could be, Parrish.  But I’m pretty sure that that many _car parts_ shouldn’t be on the outside.  I’d hate to see the shitbox sent to an early grave.”

“Oh man.”  A blade of a smile snakes across your face.  “Unless…  You let me dream you a sports car.  Then, have fun on the road to Shitsburg, tri-colored travesty of terror.  We can call the new one _2 Honda 2 Yota.  Shitbox Drift_.”

“I am not letting you _dream me a car_.”

“Parrish.  Come on.  All the cool kids have one.” 

And Adam gives you that look.  The taste of mild judgment and incredulity you’re granted whenever you suggest something he thinks is dangerous, or stupid, or both.  His face before the moving dolly, and the shopping carts, when he followed you into the unknown depths of a cave.  That’s usually, to your unerring delight, trailed by his grudging compliance.  But you know he’s not giving in, not to this.  He’s just choosing not to fight.  “Gansey’s only got one ‘cause you drove the first to a premature death.”

You grin.  “No one needs your technicalities, fuckass.” 

He never got around to answering the question you were trying to ask.  And you’re still curious what kind of ungodly mess he’s making.  You push yourself upright, feel the pavement dig at your palms.  “So?”

An eyebrow slants upward in response.  You wave a hand at the ground.  “What is all this?”

“Need to get to the starter to figure out what’s wrong with it,” he explains.  “Unfortunately for me, that’s proving almost as difficult as enduring your company.”

“Fucking rude.”

Adam smirks down at the car; it’s unfairly attractive.  A handful of moments later he gives a grunt, and something metal shifts.  You know the sound shouldn’t be as hot as it is, but damn.  _Damn_.  The sight of him—muscles straining and covered in grease—is hard enough to handle without the backtrack of audible effort.  That’s just too much.  You lie back on the asphalt and try to focus on the clouds above.

“Finally,” he breathes.  The satisfaction in his voice fills you with a different kind of warmth.  Your eyes cut back to Adam, examining an oddly-shaped piece of car.

“What’s the verdict there, Einstein?”

“Looks fine from the outside.  I don’t know, I’ll have to take it apart to tell.”  You think there might be a metaphor in there somewhere. 

But all you can see is his hands, long fingers dirtied and tracing the bolts.  “Might be the gear assembly,” he says absently.  Then he sits, scooting the rag with his tools on it toward him. 

“Well, let me know when you figure it out, and I’ll run your filthy ass down to AutoZone.”  You long to offer him something, but you take the time to chew the words over.  Parrish still has a complicated relationship with gifts.  And if he’s more open to accepting them from you, it’s probably more to do with your attitude about it than it being anything about _you_.  Throwing food in his direction that’ll go to waste otherwise.  Painting it as payment, a trade for him dealing with your annoyances.  Always as an inconvenience; more for your good than his.  Layering them in jokes—acting like they’re worth nothing to you. 

“If it’s really something as fucking stupid as a gear, I could save us both the time and the trip.”  Very carefully skirting around the _and you the money you might not have to spare_.  A few minutes of potential hell versus Adam starving himself for days or picking up extra shifts when he should be sleeping… it’s nothing to you.  And everything to you to spare him it.  “And I could just dream you a new one.  You know, since you won’t let me do the whole car.”

“No car, Lynch.  Didn’t you decide you were anti-sleep now, anyway?  Or have you actually realized for once, how stupid an idea is _before_ it gets dangerous?”

“Hah.”  You wait for his eyes to drift toward you.  A huge, shit-eating grin stretches your cheeks.  “I’d do anything for you, babe, just say the word.”  You throw an exaggerated wink his direction and pray with all your might that Adam takes it as the joke he’s supposed to.  The moment before he responds strips your nerves raw.

Laughter rockets out of him.  That flush is back in his cheeks, but the discomfort’s gone.  “Shut up.  You’re the worst.”

A warm wave of contentment, of accomplishment, washes over you.  You can’t help it.  Even if he doesn’t know what you’re actually saying, the sincerity you blanket in layers of dripping sarcasm… 

(He knows.  You know he does.  _He has to_.  He’s nothing remotely resembling any kind of stupid, and you’re not subtle, and you’ve been spending a frankly inadvisable amount of time with him for someone harboring an excess of romantic feelings for their straight best friend.  And this—these exchanges, the lovelorn glances—they’re not new.  You’re just pushing them further and further.  And he’s not stopping you.  _Why isn’t he stopping you?_ )

Even if he ignores it all in favor of keeping things the way they are…  A weight still lifts every time you let it out and the shame doesn’t rush in in its place. 

Here, with him… you’re light and alive.

 


	36. forecast

**xxxvi.**

The night is a live wire, crackling with oppressive energy.  Marked with an echo of something trapped below the surface, thrashing to escape.  A storm is coming.  You’re not much for omens, but it smacks of a sign.

Adam radiates the same tension.  Mood matching the sky, he’s mired in his own head.  Whatever thoughts are scraping around in there aren’t pleasant.  He’s dismissive, the way he signals for your silence.  Overly clinical as he details his wayward anatomy.  When you study his hand and eyes, he looks on with thinly veiled frustration.  He’s _volatile_ —either gearing up for a fight or trying to come down from one.  Making you the worst person to turn to.

Faced with this prickly Parrish, you can’t help but wonder…  If he didn’t want you here, why the fuck did he call?Maybe _want_ wasn’t even involved, with the others busy at the Litchfield Lair of Dumbfuckery.  That possibility stings.

Especially when he should know your help is a given.  If Cabeswater’s being impossible, if Parrish can’t translate without resorting to dodgy magic—you’ll do anything you can.  Of course you will.  Still, the fact of his attitude remains.  You may as well be jet fuel to the smoldering coals of his temper.

Supernatural errand-running wasn’t likely Parrish’s first choice of how to spend the night, but Cabeswater isn’t giving him much of one.  He lays out a tentative plan.  You’re here to move his body where his mind leads.  Keep an eye on him so he doesn’t stray too far.  He doesn’t sound particularly sure about it.  About _anything_ , really.  He sounds…  You don’t know.  But it’s churning your insides through nails and glass.

Adam softens when Chainsaw approaches.  Enough to offer her an arm, and you a half-hearted jab about the lotion incident.  His quiet footsteps trail you to the BMW.  “I didn’t think you were gonna come,” he admits.

“The fuck wouldn’t I?  You asked me to help.”

“I dunno.  It’s pretty late.  Figured you might’ve ignored my message.”

You scoff.  “You had your late classes and what, a few hours of homework?  Did you actually want me to show up earlier, you stubborn shitass?”

He goes quiet.  An unnerving distance lingers in his eyes when he meets your gaze over the roof of the car.  “You look rough, Lynch.”  The running commentary on your face is starting to feel personal.

If you wanted a fight, you could say the same for him.  Not that he looks bad—he never looks _bad_ , just varying degrees of exhausted.  But he’s not himself tonight.  It’s like there’s barely an Adam here at all.  And what’s left is edging into agitation and apprehension.  He’s more bothered by what happened than he’s willing to let on.

 _Is he in danger?_   Something stirs in the pit where you smother the thoughts you refuse to let see the light of day.  You clamp it down.  “Are we just gonna stand here all night and talk about how much my fucking face offends you?”

He huffs and slides into the car.  You can’t help but feel you’ve disappointed him somehow. 

Inside, Adam sits stewing in a silence so obtrusive it might as well be another passenger.  It blisters through the cabin.  His gentle fingers range through your bird’s feathers in lieu of acknowledgment.  You marinate in the tension for as long as you can bear, wanting him to cave first.

“What crawled up your ass today?”  _Oops._  

“I told you.”  You give him a look of untempered disdain by which to measure the precise amount of bullshit you know he’s feeding you.  He repays you with a reluctant sigh.  “And Blue.”

“Shit, man.  Wow.  Never would have guessed Sargent was into that.  Does Dick know?”

“ _Jesus_.”  He runs a palm down his face.  Pinches the bridge of his nose as he confesses, “We got into it.”

You’re perfectly capable of putting two and two together without him illustrating the finer points.  Your eyes dart away.

So you were right after all.  He’d gone to Blue first.  She’d told him no; that she had other plans.  When Parrish realized what those plans were, they’d fought.  Over her furtive, poorly-concealed involvement with Gansey, and God knows what else.  _That’s_ why he’s in a foul mood.  Sargent.

You long to quash the ugly jealousy creeping over you yet again.  It’s pointless.  Outside of the  _Gansey Shituation_ —you’re opposed to the lies on principle—you do like her.  Care about her like a sister.  You have more in common than either of you’d begrudgingly admit.  She isn’t even interested in Parrish anymore.  It’s stupid.  You’re being stupid.

“It’s not like that,” Adam says under his breath.  A bitter note interleaves the words, giving them bite.  You suspect you’ve missed something.  Or maybe he’s just talking to himself.

When you turn back, he’s staring at you.  Has _been_ staring, probably.  Your heart kicks like a cornered animal.  There’s a brittle sort of calculation in his eyes.  You’re not sure what you expect him to say, but what comes out of his mouth isn’t it.

“Haven’t you slept at all?”

You glare at him.  Other than hastily snatching a part to save Adam his precious twenty-seven dollars, you’ve been doing your damnedest to avoid that very thing.  You slipped once, two days ago—and came careening back from that malevolent darkness so fast, you probably have psychosomatic whiplash. 

“You can’t just _do_ that.  It’s dangerous.”

“Says the king of three jobs, fucking mountains of homework, and no sleep.”

“I snatch it whenever I can get it.  You know that.”  You do.  You’ve seen him fall asleep at any time, any place, under any circumstance. 

“I meant what I said.”

“So you’re planning on just not sleeping until you die?  Smart, Lynch.”

“Sounds about right.  Look, if you don’t trust me to drive, you’re welcome to wait for Blue.”

Adam narrows his eyes at you, but makes no moves to leave.  Apparently he trusts you.  To drive safely, even though you’re rocking a good forty-three hours of solid sleep deprivation.  To follow his instructions.  To keep him from fading off into the void beside you.  “How are we doing this?”

Chainsaw hops into the backseat, settling against a curled-up jacket.  Left with nothing to do with his hands, Adam fiddles with the latch on the glove compartment.  “Light, probably.  It’d be easiest, with it dark.”

“Grab the car charger out of there.”  You thank God that you have enough residual sense to know better than to reach for it yourself.  “Piece of shit’s bright as all fuck.”  He hands it over, and a halo of white floods the console as promised. 

“Music?” you offer.  “It helps me.”  It’s an inside-out suggestion, underlining the striking similarity of your circumstances.  Both of you need to walk that edge between oblivion and reality to find success.  To be safe.  You wonder, not for the first time, if Adam could…  _Nope.  Not going there_.  You cram the lid back on that train of thought.

“Sure,” he agrees.  Which isn’t what you’d expect, either. 

Then Adam pauses, looking you straight in the eyes.  Deadly serious and full of transparent faith.  Something in your chest is unwinding violently, uncontrolled.  Like an anchor dropped overboard.  You want to say something.  _Need_ to say something.  There’s nothing that isn’t too dangerous to say.

“Don’t let me go.”  He runs an absent-minded thumb over the scar on the back of his hand.  He’s putting his life in yours.

Your skin’s still warm where it brushed against his.  Palm against palm, his breath on your face.  The lines of his open hand beneath your fingertips.  You want terribly to kiss him.

 _Never,_ you think.  “Don’t worry,” you say.  “Your scrawny ass isn’t getting rid of me that easily.”

 


	37. devil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> cw: past abuse and contemplation of violence  
> 

**xxxvii.**

_Fuck_ this, honestly.  Fuck tonight.  Fuck Cabeswater.  Fuck magic.  Fuck Adam, in particular. 

For suggesting this shit.  For _doing_ this shit right there in the passenger seat.  For all the cardiac arrest he’s driving you to, he might as well be digging your grave.

You’ve seen the lights go out before, when he’s deep in communication with the forest.  But you’ve never seen him this _vacant_.  It’s terrifying.  “Parrish,” you murmur. 

You’re not sure if you should wake him.  Maybe this is how it’s supposed to go.  Maybe he’s just getting his bearings.  Chances are, it’s only been a handful of seconds since he fell away.  It feels like a motherfucking eternity, with the unchained worry that’s jackhammering through your veins.

 _Jesus_.  Was this as terrible an idea as it seems?  What if, by scrying so deeply, he’s opened a direct line to whatever force attacked him today? 

 _Stop kidding yourself, fuckass_.  An ugly, gnawing suspicion tells you you already know.  That it’s the same reason you’re avoiding sleep like the plague.  On the list of things you don’t even remotely want to consider, that’s pretty much number fucking one.

Because _that_?  That implies the darkness in your dreams isn’t just some recurring subfuckery, but something real.  An entity searching, reaching out to destroy.  That the tainted tree was yet another symptom.  Which would mean…  _God._ You’re not safe.  Cabeswater isn’t safe—

_I will be your hands.  I will be your eyes._

_Fuck._  You need to tell him.  He has every right to know.  

What you’ve done.  What you’ve caused.  What you’ve kept from him.  While you’re at it, you should just tear your heart out now and save him the trouble.  Back over it a few times.  Really grind it into the pavement for good measure. 

How many times can you turn his world on its head before your inconvenience outweighs your worth?

_I can take things from my dreams.  My dad could do it too.  My mom?  She’s Dad’s literal dream girl.  My brother?  Surprise, I dreamed him years ago.  Long before I understood anything. ~~I still don’t understand anything.~~_

_You talked me through the worst thing I’ve ever done.  You watched me kill myself. ~~Did it remind you of last year?  Me too~~.  You helped us beat him, though.  I never could have done it without you._

_I want you so bad, I’m choking with it.  I’m trying though, to keep things from getting weird. ~~I’m going to fuck it up and I’m sorry~~.  I still value your friendship more than my own heart._

_Something’s happening.  Remember the forest, how it started all this?  How you bargained yourself away? ~~I still have nightmares about that day~~.  Yeah, well.  I dreamed it to life.  No big deal.  By the way, I think I might be in terrible danger.  ~~I’m never going to forgive myself if…~~   And I’m praying with fucking everything I’ve got that you’re safe._

When does enough become enough?  This constellation of revelations seems a solid candidate for a tipping point.  He’ll never look at you the same again.

“Parrish.”  _Say something. Just fucking say_ something _, please._ Chainsaw rustles in the backseat.  His eyes remain unfocused, breaths shallow.  You’re two seconds from pulling over the goddamn car.  Adam could be dying a foot from you and you wouldn’t even know until it was too late. 

“ _Adam_.”  Dropping your hand from the gearshift, you allow a few fingers to press into his wrist.  His pulse kicks.  Something like afraid to get caught, you snatch your hand away. 

Finally, _finally_ —he rasps, “North.”  You correct your course to a rough approximation of it.  Steal several more glances his way.  He still looks… disconnected.  But there’s a presence to him that was missing moments ago.

Intermittently offering instructions, Adam continues to guide you.  Something about the route he’s devising feels familiar, like tracing paper overlying the vague shape of a memory.  Another turn.  Another shot of suspicion.  Dread carves out the base of your stomach.  You could be wrong.  You might still be wrong.

You pretend it right up until you pull into the trailer park, because you’re nothing if not stubborn.  _Why?_ you wonder.  _Why would he have led us back to this fucking place?_  Pulse trilling unpleasantly, you kill the music.  “Parrish?” 

He’s slipped away again in your distraction.  _Fuck._ “Parrish _._ ”   _Nothing._   Too far for you to reach.  A catastrophic dose of panic surges through you.  “ _PARRISH_.”  Your hand brushes against his, hoping, _praying_ for some sort of response _._

He blinks.  You breathe.  You’re a knot of fear and worry, fury and doubt.  Every muscle braided in tension.  He sighs.  You level your voice as much as you’re able.  “Why are we here?”

“Wrong devil,” he replies.  A raw, bitter wryness tangled in the words.

Anger floods in so fast, so strong, it pushes you into a lethal calm.  _That fucknozzle._   Part of you wants the bastard to come outside.  To challenge you.  You’ve entertained endless possibilities for ripping that cowardly sack of shit apart, ever since you figured it out.  What a pathetic excuse for a man—to abuse the beautiful boy sitting beside you for what…  Seventeen years of his life?  Seventeen fucking _years_.  While he was helpless to do anything about it but suffer and claw his way out.  The remarkable boy who is everything— _everything_ to you.  Who deserves all the love in the world.  Who never got it.

“Why are we here?” 

That fucker did everything he could to beat him down, to break him, to trap him in the mud.  Yet here he is, on track for valedictorian while holding down three jobs and playing assistant to a magical forest.  The only responsibility the untold majority of your class can claim is a dedication to affluent leisure.  Adam’ll be able to choose any Ivy League he wants.  He’s going to get out.  He’s going to make something—something great—of himself, just as he’s always wanted.  It’s not even a question.

“Why are we _at_ this fucking place?”

The door creaks open, admitting a dark figure through the gap.  You want to grab that disgusting piece of shit by the neck.  Wring it and scream yourself hoarse.  _Look at him.  Look at everything your son has accomplished in spite of you, you stupid worthless fuck.  You’re not worth the goddamn air you breathe.  Shit-sucking cow taint, even hell is too good for the likes of you.  You deserve worse than to burn._

You want to punch him in the fucking face again.  Smash his skull.  Feed his entrails to your night horrors while he looks on, helpless.  Every single goddamn inch of you _hates_ everything about this waste of a man.

You don’t realize your hand is on the door until Adam warns, “Don’t.”  But hatred is overflowing from your every pore.  You have to do something, vent some of it off before it strangles you.  Your finger finds the window button, a compromise for his sake. 

You don’t hold back.  You want that shitstain to see, to know.  To read every bit of the loathing you feel, written all over your face.  To see Adam, safe beside you—happy and free.  If looks could kill, you’d take a perverse delight in watching the fucker keel over. 

He doesn’t move.  Doesn’t give you the satisfaction.  You’re dimly glad for it, aware of the impossibility of backing down like Adam would want.  You spit, struggling to fight the urge even now.  You have to look away before you do something you’ll regret.  The window slips closed, reducing the world to you and Adam and the silence between you.  Adrenaline sings through your blood.

“I want to go get Orphan Girl,” Adam says.

Something in you softens.  The fact that he cares about your dream-guide-girl.  The fact that seeing his worthless excuse for a father brought out protection in him, where it brought out righteous fury in you.

You consider Adam, connecting dots you never thought to before.  His indignation when he first saw Orphan Girl.  His anger before you came up with a plan.  It wasn’t just frustration with your carelessness.  It was outrage at a looming future of neglect.  Not a _how did you fuck up so badly as to bring her out of your dreams_ , but a _you can’t just bring a child into the world and decide you don’t want it anymore_. 

It makes you feel…  Far too much.  You turn your attention to the BMW, something you actually know how to handle.  The tires spin up gravel and dust and malice as you reverse.  “Okay.”

 


	38. recursion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: horror themes
> 
> rough translations of impending latin: _periculosum_ = dangerous | _rūinae omnī_ = ruins all | _vastātore_ = destroyer | _abscede_ = leave/go away   
>    
> 

**xxxviii.**

“We’re getting out of here.”  Tonight is officially a shitshow of ass-guzzling proportions.  And the horror of it worsens still, right alongside your dread.  _Don’t panic, Lynch.  Fucking panic, and you’ll only make it worse_.  You can’t afford that.  Not here, not now.  Because this isn’t one of your dreams.  It’s real—as real as it fucking gets.  No shortcut out, no easy way to cut shit and run.  _Focus._ You have to get Adam and Orphan Girl to safety.  But how?

“Don’t forget she’s coming with us.”  _Thank you for that incredibly necessary reminder, Captain McFucking Obvious._

Adam trembles where he kneels, the whole of him rendered shakily off-center.  From this angle, you get a clear glimpse of his mismatched pupils.  You think he’s trying to look at you, but his gaze is skewed.  _Wrong_ doesn’t even begin to describe it.  It’s spooky.  Worrisome.  The words of his promise— _your eyes_ —lurk in the dark corners of your memory.

“Where’s Chainsaw?”

It takes him far too long to answer.  “S-she flew off.  When you…”  _Leapt into an acid pool?_   Fair enough, you suppose.  You’ll just have to hope her absence means she’s found her own way out.  

“Up,” you grunt, pulling Adam to his feet.  There’s less pain than you’d expect.  Honestly, you don’t feel a fraction as bad as you think you should, not after your extended flirtation with an acid bath of doom.  There’s a bed of coals where your lungs used to be, fiberglass in your throat.  But the rest seems to be easing off.  _Strange_.

Your eyes find Orphan Girl.  She’s huddled against the rock, brushing stray leaves from her legs and the sleeves of her filthy sweater.  Her skin’s already faded from an angry red to a harsh pink.  _Cabeswater_ , you realize.  It’s using the energy infused by its magician to mend its Greywaren and his ward.  You don’t know whether to be annoyed or impressed.

“Kerah.”  She looks up suddenly.  “ _Periculosum!_ ”

Your scrutiny moves past her.  There, up the rock face—just like the pool.  Darkness is bleeding the sickly green cast of the air black.  _Yeah, fuck that right on to hell_.

“Come on.”  Adam responds with a weak, almost imperceptible nod.  You edge away, eyeing him warily.  The way he’s swaying…  You’re not sure you can even trust him to _walk_ , much less pick his way back up the slope.  Adam takes a step.  No—Adam tries to take a step, and promptly fails. 

You reach out, too late to catch him as he slumps forward.  He lands hard on his side, hands curled uselessly in front of him.  “Shit.”  You dive after him.  The bare rock pulses under your palms, driving an electric jolt straight through to your spine.  _Fuck_.  You lose your breath in the shock of it. 

Sitting back on your heels, you snatch your arms away the moment your muscles cooperate.  Stark unease coils through you.  Bracing for another blow, you reach for his shoulder.  But it’s just Adam—no surprise magic fuckery. 

His eyes are closed, breaths shallow.  “Parrish.  Hey.”  You jostle him again.  “We need to leave.  Right the fuck now.”  How, though?  He can’t get back up, not like this.  And you can’t carry him up that steep a slope.  Your stomach turns over.  His head lolls to the side.  Something nonsensical slurs from his mouth.

“Now is _not_ the time to pull this shit, man.  Get up.”  Seriously, fuck this night.  If you never have to drag him back from the depths of some unknown mystical danger with absolutely nothing at your disposal again, it will be far too soon.  Cabeswater can go fuck itself on a cactus.  _Leave him alone, bitch._

“ _R_ _ūinae omn_ _ī.  Abscede!_ ”  Orphan Girl stands several feet away, fluttering with agitation.  She briefly switches to English, like that’s the problem.  Like she thinks that’ll make you listen faster.  “Out!”

“I know!  I hear you, goddamn it.  He can’t fucking walk!”

_Get out get out get out—_

“Parrish!”  You grip his chin, trying to wrest some signal of consciousness from him.

“Here,” he murmurs.

“What?”  He’s not making a damn bit of sense.

“It’s...  ...here.”

A choked laugh escapes you.  “No shit, Sherlock.  Now get your ass up.”

“Ro—” his voice loses its handle on your name halfway through.

“Don’t make me drag you, fuckface.  I’ll do it.  You know I will.”  You refuse to think about the fact that you can’t.  That you can’t get him out.  You won’t.

“ _Vast_ _ātore.  Abscede.  Abscede!_ ”

“What do you want me to do?  Jesus fuck!  I can’t.”  She’s whimpering now, tears streaming down her face.  Stricken stiff with panic.  You’re not sure you’ve ever seen someone look so afraid.

“Kerah,” she whispers, lip quivering.  It hits you then.  There’s an eerie familiarity to your surroundings, to this darkened hellscape of Cabeswater.  Not just any nightmare—a very specific one.  _Shit_.  The resemblance forges your blood in lead.  The seeking darkness that ached to devour; that was going to kill Adam.

“God fucking shit _damn it_ _to ass-fucking hell_.”  The sky above eddies in whorls of red and purple, everything about it every bit as wrong as that dream.  Except this isn’t.  No second chances here.

“ _CABESWATER!_ ”  The strain grates against the residual pain in your lungs.  “Do you want to keep your fucking hands and eyes?  _Me?_   Do something!  Do something if you plan on it, you stupid fucker.  Show us out!  _Make a way_.”  The hot sandpaper sensation in your throat lets up.  “Christ, _fuck off!_   Stop it.  We’re good enough.  If you want to help us, then let us _out_!”

The forest heaves.  The sound itself is a nightmare, like the earth wrenching itself in two.  Orphan Girl lets out a shriek.  You scramble over Adam, intent on protecting his prone form with yours.  The ground doesn’t attack you this time.  Maybe it was only Cabeswater, wantonly redirecting energy through skin contact. 

When silence falls again, you glance around.  The rock face to your left is split open, just high enough to glimpse the shadows of trees on the other side of the gash.  It’s full dark now, a forest of midnight.  This is all the help you’re going to get.  Cabeswater’s spent itself to nothing.

Nothing like trying to fight your way out of a nightmare when you can’t see where you’re going.  The girl whimpers nearby.  A feeble light slowly sputters to life through the gap.  “Go on.”  She scampers away, taking the signal for what it is.  Adrenaline shreds through your frantic pulse.  You rest a palm against Adam’s cheek.  He doesn’t blink.  “You can give me shit for this later, asshole.  But I’m getting you out of here if it goddamn kills me.”  It’s all the warning you give him, and you’re not even sure he hears it. 

And then you’re hoisting him up, following Orphan Girl through the hellish maze of the forest’s gloom.  A decade must pass before you reach the clearing.  Logically, you know your exit was faster than the trip in.  Cabeswater did more to help.  _Had_ more with which to try.  _It took it from Adam_.  That’s what’s wrong with him.  The understanding cuts at you, bleeding fury in its wake.

Finally, you make it out.  Night on this side of the border seems bright in comparison, the color of the sky a blessed blue-black.  Orphan Girl hurtles toward the BMW.  Chainsaw waits on the roof, a sight for sore eyes.  The back door is ripped open; bird and girl are closed inside.  You approach the car yourself before lowering Adam from your shoulders.  You’re trembling—with fear, with adrenaline, with fatigue.  It feels like there’s a gaping hole where your heart used to be.  And your arteries are just reeling about, trying to find it.

His eyes are still closed.  He hasn’t moved or said a word since your half-murmured name.  You sit back, arms hooked around your knees.  Staring at Adam and doing a feeble job of not succumbing to panic.  What if Cabeswater took too much from him?  What if he never wakes up?  You’ll never forgive yourself.  Do you need to take him to the hospital?  Would they even be able to help?  God, he would hate it.  He would hate it so much.  After everything that’s happened tonight, that might be the last straw.  _But if he’s safe, does it really matter?_

Adam sits up with a groan and a grimace on his face.  His hands gravitate to his temples, fingers digging in.  Your arms are wrapped around him, long before conscious thought can gather the strength to convince you not to.  Embracing his solid warmth— _alive, alive, alive_ —mere seconds before he shoves you away. 

Of course he does.  What right did you have to think it’d be any different?  Not after what you told him.  After what happened.  Knowing damn well you’re pinned the nebulous source of blame.  “You bastard,” he says, voice ragged and ugly. 

Knowing it and living through it are two entirely different things.  Your heart sits heavy in your chest.  You press back against the car.  Eyes locked on the starry sky.  You can’t bear to look at him.  Can’t stand to see _that_ brought to life on top of everything else.  “Thank you.”

He’s silent for a spreading moment.  “Are you serious?”  There’s ire sharp in his voice.  Hurt blossoms through you, a vile flower.  “You don’t have to thank me, idiot.”

“Yes, I do.  Look what the fuck it took out of you.”

“What else would I have done?” he demands, like he can’t fathom that another possibility exists.

“Told Cabeswater to fuck off and mind its own business.” 

He lets out an indignant huff.  “Then you’d be _dead_ , asshole.  Have you factored _that_ into your awful scenario?  Look at me, damn it.”  And you do, not without reluctance.  His face is twisted into a complicated tangle of emotions you don’t want to unpack.  “Don’t be stupid.”

But he got hurt, trying to help you.  The knowledge is tearing you apart from the inside.  Like the acid got trapped somewhere within and Cabeswater couldn’t get it out.  It’s going to devour you whole.  “My dream, my problem,” you mutter. 

As if you could actually believe he’d stand by and watch you die.  You know he would never.  He’s a fundamentally decent human being.  Probably has that part covered better than you.  It doesn’t change the fact that he put his life on the line to save yours.  He can’t act like that’s nothing. 

“Fuck you, Ronan,” he says, low and terrible.  Like you’ve personally dealt him a grave injury.  Your tongue stills, unable to negotiate a proper reply.

You’re saved the response when Adam lists to the side.  Between one moment and the next, he’s heaving violently.  Just the sound makes it feel like your own stomach’s being torn out.  You rise to your feet, overwhelmed with uselessness.  You don’t know how to handle any of this.  You just want to press rewind, undo everything that’s happened today.  Get back to _before_.

Rounding the car, you stop to buckle Orphan Girl into her seat.  You can hear Adam spitting, trying his best to clear his throat.  He opens the passenger door while you’re petting Chainsaw, attempting to collect your thoughts.  You reach a bottle of water from the backseat across the console.  He takes it, thoroughly cleaning his mouth out before he collapses into his seat.

After you get in, you sit in awkward silence.  He’s got his head leaned back against the headrest.  Not looking at you.  Not saying a word.  “Are you…”  The _okay_ shrivels on your tongue.  “What can I do?” you ask instead.  Because it’s the real question.

“You think you could maybe not be such a goddamned asshole all the time?”

“Probably not, it’s my default setting,” you respond softly.

He turns, face drawn in lines of blank consideration.  “Food, then.  I feel like I haven’t eaten in three weeks.”

That much, you can do.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, paintedpolarbear (@pnrrish) put together a great playlist inspired by this fic. Check out [**the art of convincing yourself you don't deserve him**](https://pnrrish.tumblr.com/post/166660483234/kavinsky-chuckles-knowingly-you-think-daddy) if you like soft, melancholy things. (Let's be honest, that probably applies to a large intersection of the readers of this fic ;) )


	39. revival

**xxxix.**

If the earlier clusterfucktastrophe hadn’t played out right before your eyes, watching Parrish order thirty-two dollars’ worth of fast food without blinking would’ve been enough to clue you in.  _Shit’s fucked_ —that’s pretty much the takeaway here.

This disaster of a night has cracked a fault line straight from your heart to your guts.  The wrongness of it all—it’s a force to be reckoned with.  And this…  You can’t ignore it, either.  Not that you plan on letting him pay for it, but Adam doesn’t just blow weeks of his grocery budget on takeout.  And the lack of irritated resignation tacit in his silence, refusing to offer you a dime…  It doesn’t help set things to rights.  

On the other hand, if he thinks you paying for his food is some sort of punishment, joke’s on him.

The BMW idles lazily while the night crew scrambles to throw together enough food to feed a small army.  You spend the time eyeing Adam.  Surreptitious moments, arranged in the spaces between the glances he sends your way.  Wondering, yet again, whether he’s okay. 

That’s not quite the truth.  _Again_ implies you’d ever stopped in the first place, and you’ve worn worry like a second skin for hours.  He’s still too far your side of pale for comfort.  Shaky under the force of a tremor he’s failing to hide.  He scared the ever-loving piss out of you back there, and you’re still not sure you’re over it.  Or if you ever will be.

Something buzzes.  Adam twitches.  His hips lift, arching to delve into his pocket at a less awkward ankle.  Your eyes stall over a flash of tan skin.  Fresh memories of his proximity seize your thoughts.  His hands.  His breath.  His soft words.  Your arms, locked desperately around him.  A shiver tickles its way down your spine.

“Fuck, forgot you had that,” you remark, trying for normalcy.  “Damn shame.  Could’ve been the perfect excuse, man.  ‘Sorry, Declan, Ronan can’t come to the phone right now.  Why?  Oh, it’s sitting at the bottom of an acid pit in the actual depths of hell.’”

“Ronan,” he scolds, face shaded in bland disapproval.

You shrug, utterly unapologetic.  “Stating facts, Parrish.”

Adam turns the offending object face-up in his palm.  “It’s Gansey,” he observes, reaching his thumb across the screen.

You’re way ahead of him, though.  Snatching the infernal piece of shit before he can answer.  Dropping it unceremoniously in the console.  “No.”

He cocks his head, expression stern.  “I’m not the one that’s physically incapable of answering a phone.”

“Exactly.”

“ _Quousque tandem_?”

You meet the girl’s gaze in the mirror.  “Forever.  Shit takes time in the real world.”

The phone rattles abortively in its cage.  “What if it’s an emergency?”

“When is it ever?”  And that, right there, is the stupidest thing that’s come out of your mouth all night.  “No, shut the fuck up.  Do _not_ answer that.”  And so his smug judgment remains wordless at your request. 

“So what if it fucking is?” you demand.  “What the hell good are you to anyone half-starved and weak as a damn kitten?”  Adam’s eyes narrow.  You’re digging yourself a hole, but you can’t find it in you to be sorry. 

“I know how you are, shitrooster.  You answer that, and he says he needs us, and you believe him?  I know goddamn well your overachieving ass isn’t gonna stop to help yourself first.  So— _no._   Whatever it is can wait until you’ve eaten your shit.”

His mouth parts, and instinct and long experience inform you that whatever spills out of it won’t be polite.  The drive-through window couldn’t pick a more perfect moment to open.  Parrish chooses to let the subject drop over one of the plethora of bags he’s attempting to balance between you.

You tuck the car into an empty corner of the lot and kill the lights.  It’s private enough.  And most importantly, not somewhere Gansey knows to look.

Adam happens upon Orphan Girl’s food first.  Chainsaw perks with interest when you pass it to her.  The girl eyes the container dubiously.  “ _Quid est_?”

“Chicken.  Not the kind with bones in, they don’t have that here.  But it’s the same stuff, so eat it.  And share with Chainsaw.”

Adam’s still rifling, arranging the frankly ridiculous number of bags along the seat and floorboard as he sorts through them.  You know the moment he finds yours—the food flying at your face leaves little room for interpretation.  That you don’t end up wearing it is a near thing, wholly unprepared as you are for the attack.  “Fucker.  And here I was going to ask your rude ass if you wanted fries with,” you wave vaguely.  “ _That_.”

He rolls his eyes.  Rather than respond, he devotes his attention to unwrapping a sandwich.  Your lips turn up at a corner, the one he can’t see.

The food is garbage at worst, lackluster at best.  Probably your taste buds haven’t made a full recovery, despite Cabeswater’s intervention.  Orphan Girl seems to suffer the same.  You can see her picking at the chicken strips, chewing mechanically.  Holding pieces out to the raven brings her more joy than feeding herself.

In the passenger seat, Adam’s wolfing down his food so fast, you’re sure he can’t taste it, either.  You watch him carefully, assessing.  “You absolutely sure I shouldn’t take you to the hospital?”

“No,” he asserts.  “Jesus, why are you being so weird about this?”

“You didn’t see yourself, Parrish.  It was fucked.  I thought I was going to lose you.”  You wince.  You’re pretty sure he doesn’t notice, distracted as he is by the earnest vibration of the console against his arm.  “I mean…  I didn’t think you were gonna make it.”

“I’m _fine._   I just need to get my energy back.”  He indicates the sandwich in his grip.  You think it’s the fourth.  He probably has a point.  If he can eat all that food without vomiting out his insides, he has to be okay.  Okay enough to count for something, anyway.

 _Still…_   “Cabeswater shouldn’t have done that.”

Adam lets loose a sound of helpless frustration.  “For the last time, Ronan.  I wasn’t.  Going.  To let you die.  Asshole.”  He huffs.  “I wish you’d stop acting like I would.  I _asked_ it to.”

“No.  I mean.  It… took more from you than it needed to.  It was trying to heal us—I could feel it.”

“Oh, and God _forbid_ you don’t suffer from acid burns?  Christ, Ronan, you really think I _minded_?”

You’re quiet for a long moment.  “It could have killed you too, Parrish.”

“It wasn’t going to.”  He reaches for yet another sandwich.

“How do you know?  Damn it, how the _fuck_ could you have known for sure?  That pisshole was a _nightmare_.  Nightmares don’t work the same.”

“It wouldn’t have.”

“Then why’d you pass out?” you growl.  The phone lapses back into its bullshit.  You’re seriously considering tossing it out the window.

“It felt like something… snapped.”

“Probably your last line of defense against a magical forest with questionable motives, numbnuts!” 

“It’s _your_ forest,” he says accusingly.

And fuck if you didn’t know this was coming.  Knew it from that weighty moment when you felt him puzzling out the connection between you and Cabeswater.  Adam thinks this is your fault.  All of it.  _You should have just lied_.

“Not anymore.”  More likely that it never was—it just tried harder to please you before, out of some twisted sense of obligation or favor.  You never commanded it.  It only chose to listen.

It knows what you want.  It should have protected Adam, above all else.  At any cost.  It _never_ should have hurt him, the way it did.  It’s not safe anymore.  “Can you cut yourself off from it?” 

His fair brows furrow.  “I don’t think so.  But there’s some chance it could do it, itself.  It’s been… failing, lately.”

He takes a long, thoughtful swig from his Coke.  “Can you?” he asks.  “You never did answer me.”

You give him a look.  “I can keep drinking coffee and energy drinks until either they stop working, or my heart does.” 

Adam blanches.  “You can’t live like that, Lynch.  It’s going to kill you.”

You offer him the barest of shrugs and look away.

“We need to figure this out.  Sooner rather than later.”  His insistence to help—even after everything, even after you’ve spilled the poisonous truth—feels monstrously unfair.

“That’s not your responsibility.  I know how much you hate sorting out my messes.”  The accusation hangs between you like a noxious cloud.  You’re not sure who it’ll end up burning more, in the end.

“Wait,” he says.  “Wait, do you actually think I blame _you_ for all this?”

“I know you do, Parrish.  You don’t have to come right out and say it.  I saw your face when I told you.”

“That’s not—”

Inside the console, the phone clatters its way into a more insistent position.  The racket attracts even Adam’s notice, disrupting him.

“You should answer that.”

He directs you a glare of supreme frustration.  Your transparent subject avoidance isn’t fooling him for a second.  He listens, though, giving into his urge to answer four calls ago. 

What follows is a patchwork half-conversation made up of more interruptions than anything else.  With the phone fitted against Adam’s right ear, you can’t hear a word Gansey’s saying.  Not that it matters.  Adam’s used to relaying conversations secondhand, anyway.

“Gansey?”

“Yes, I’m with Ronan.  We—”

“We were having dinner.  He wasn’t—”  _Jesus_ , he’s not letting Adam get a word in edgewise.

“What’s wrong?”  Adam asks, the very thing you’re wondering.

“Hey, slow down.” 

“She _what_?”

There’s silence for several moments.  _She_ who?  Blue?  _Is something actually wrong?_

“Yeah.  Yeah, of course.  We’ll be right there.” 

Adam stares down at the phone after he hangs up.  You wait for him to speak.  _You’ll be right where?_   When he looks over to you, he’s pale and drawn. 

“He’s at Mountain View.  The urgent care.  Blue got hurt.”

And you know, as sure as you’ve known anything these past few hours—that it wasn’t her doing.  Not some mundane injury she acquired on her own.  Something hurt _her_.

“Fuck this night.” 

 


	40. prelude

**xl.**

“Ronan?” he inquires warily.  Like he can see the agitation in your frame from where he’s standing.  Unlikely, given the dark and the car door obscuring his view.  The BMW’s idling in the back lot when he emerges from the garage that night.  You slouch tense and motionless in the driver’s seat, windows down, jarring bass making a valiant effort at dissolving your organs.

Eyes locked forward, you blindly twist the volume knob so you don’t have to shout.  “Can we go somewhere?”  _Silence_.  “I just…”  You’ve got no idea where to start, how to describe what it is you actually need.  You don’t know if there’s even an answer for it.  Just a deep-seated need to stifle this burning urge to rip the skin from your bones. 

“Where do you wanna go?”  You finally look at him.  Whatever helpless desperation he gleans from your expression is apparently enough of an answer.  “Drive back to St. Agnes with me.  We’ll go.”

You tear out of the lot well ahead of him, unable to keep to anything remotely resembling a speed limit in your current condition.  The snarl of thoughts chasing after you proves impossible to outrun.  A few threads from the tangle settle deeper while you wait for him in the church lot.

_This is stupid_.  You don’t know where the fuck you want to go.  What you want to do.  Spending time alone with him when you’re feeling this chaotically stupid is dangerous, at best.

_This is selfish_.  Adam has homework.  He started his shift right after school.  And you don’t know how late you’re likely to keep him, because you don’t know what it is you _want_.  You should never have asked him.  You should leave.  He’ll be annoyed at you for being flighty.  For asking him to do something and immediately changing your mind about it.  But he’ll be able to grab a shower and finish his homework in peace.

_This is wrong_.  Your hand’s resting on the parking brake when the Hondayota pulls into its spot beside you.  Too late now.

Adam doesn’t wait for an invitation.  He just opens the passenger door, tosses his bag into the backseat, and closes himself in.  He smells strongly of the garage, and the senseless jab of lust that sweeps over you does little to improve your state of mind.

“Drive,” he instructs.  Like he somehow understands what you need.

And so it becomes you and him and tires on asphalt, the growl of the engine, and the pulsing thrum of your electronic heartstrings.  He doesn’t tell you to slow down.  He doesn’t ask you to explain.  You feel _known_ , and that drives its own kind of peace through your adrenaline-infested veins.

You never would have guessed you were bringing him out here to _talk—_ but swallowing all this is burning you up from the inside.  There’s a distant possibility sharing some of it with Adam might lessen the load. 

He turns to you, expectant, when you lower the music.  Quiet and waiting.  Your eyes stay trained on the road, mulling over your thoughts.  You don’t know how to explain yourself, but that doesn’t mean you won’t try.

“I can’t sleep.  As much as I fucking hate to admit it, Parrish, I think you were right.  I can’t keep this up for much longer.  But if I don’t…”

He allows you the time to shuffle your thoughts into words.  “That shit that was in Cabeswater.  I told you it was in my dreams, too.  But that wasn’t exactly the truth.  Not the whole thing, anyway.  It’s been reaching for me for a while.  Just regular nightmares at first.  Then there would be this shadow out of place.  This fucking ominous sense of just… pure-ass pants-shitting dread.  It kept coming.  Orphan Girl—”  Your fingers clench against the steering wheel.

“I took her out because it was coming for us.  Didn’t fucking mean to, but shit happens.  It might have been a good thing, anyway.  She hated so many of my dreams, and these…  They’re all like that now.  There’s no lead-up.  No part of the dream where I think to myself:  _yeah, this is a situation I can handle_.  I fall asleep, and I’m right back in that nightmare.  It wants to kill me.  I think, the more chances I give it…  It’s going to win.”

The press of frustration weights your foot on the gas.  Adam doesn’t breathe a word of protest.  “And I don’t…  I don’t even know where to fucking start.  How the shit am I supposed to fix _this_?  Without the dreams, I’m just a regular goddamned person.  How am I supposed to—  This…  It’s just so fucking _much_.”

“I know,” he says finally.  Words heavy.  The air laden with the burden of a terrible secret.

You don’t push it.  Out of fear more than decency—because you still haven’t admitted yours.  Because you’d like to keep it that way.  You’re not ready to trade away that truth.  Maybe you never will be.

Because even if you’re sure he already knows…  As long as you haven’t uttered the words, you can both pretend it’s not the truth.  That hairsbreadth of reasonable doubt feels like the only thing that’s holding your dignity together.  And maybe, even still, your friendship.

His reaction to Cabeswater was bad enough.  The prospect of a repeat threatens to upend your stomach.

“I’ve been having nightmares too,” he admits.  “I can’t tell if it’s related to Cabeswater, or if they’re all just me.”  He drums his fingers against the door arm.  “Mine aren’t out to kill me, though.  You’ve got me beat there.”

“What are yours of?”

“You.”

A wry smile tucks itself onto your lips to mask the sting.  “Thanks, Parrish.  I can really feel the love.”

“ _Dying_ ,” he says.  “Over and over again.  I can’t get to you fast enough.  I can’t save you.”

Your heart is thick in your throat.  That’s not what you expected.  Not by a long shot.

“I can’t save Gansey.  Blue hates me for it.”  So not just you, then.  That makes more sense.  “You _loathe_ me.”  There’s another loaded pause before Adam continues.  “It’s…”  He shakes his head, then, refusing to finish.

“I’ll never hate you, dumbass.  That’s not going to happen.”  It feels like too much to say.  It doesn’t feel like enough. 

Adam lapses back into silence.  The blacktop below gluts itself on spent time and hushed reveries. 

Eventually you pull off into a flat, non-descript field.  It’s a crisp, clear night.  Stars for miles.

Unanchored from the speedometer, your pulse begs for guidance.  _Breathe_.  You try to throttle it.  _In, out_.  To smother the persistent desire to grab Adam’s hand where it rests against his thigh.  Your stupid heart’s still calling for you to bare it.  Whether it’s out of a baser need for connection with boy beside you, or a hapless cry for help—you’re not sure.  Either way, you hate it.

Leaning back against the headrest, you stare out at the sky.  You trust Adam.  He’s smart as ever-loving fuck.  _You can tell him_.  “I need to figure out what to do for Mom.”

To his credit, Adam doesn’t ask for clarification.  He’s too intelligent not to have connected the dots, even if he’s never given the matter an ounce of thought before.  All he asks is, “Now?”

“No.  Not just us, not again.  Shit was too dangerous to go back on our own.  And we didn’t even get close to the glade.  We need help.  Blue to amplify our power over it, maybe?  And Gansey might be able to try his capital-I intention voice shit.  We could see if the witches can help somehow.  I don’t know.  All I know is it’s too far to go not to make sure we can come out the other side alive.  We won’t be doing anyone any favors if we all get murdered.”

“Okay.”

“Also, I…  _Fuck_.”  You drag your palms up and down your face.  “I don’t know anything about this shit.  My dad left that crap in his will about providing for Mom’s care.  I had Gansey call the nursing place when we took her to Cabeswater.  Made up some horseshit about moving her to another facility.  That their services were no longer required.  And I still don’t _know_ , if she needed all that?  This is so fucking—”

“Just.  _Fucked_.  This is fucked.  Dad’s cows never had home health, and they’re obviously fine and fucking dandy in their pissass magical comas without it.  But Mom’s a _person_ , damn it.  What if it’s different for her?  What if she needs it, and I can’t get them back?  I don’t know how any of this fucking shit works.  What if they need to see transfer paperwork?  Medical records?  What if I ruined this?”

Adam’s hand finds its way to your forearm.  You feel a little hysterical.  Way too many emotions swimming through you for comfort.  You need to be driving.  You need to be right where you are.  “I just…  I need to do this right.  I _can’t_ fuck this up.  It’s my mom, Adam.”

_Shit._   You called him Adam.  Definitely the wrong move for the intimacy of this enclosed space.  For the warmth of his skin against yours.

“Okay,” he repeats.  “We’ll figure it out.”

And he’s right.  Of course he is.  You’ll figure it out, together.  You’ve got time.  When he says it in that tone, you’ve no choice but to believe him.  Such a honeyed calm, carrying the full warmth of his voice.

Just how he’d stopped you before, leaving the urgent care.  Orphan Girl crawled back into the car.  Adam blocked you, grabbing your wrist.  Not letting you follow her.  He got closer than you knew how to handle, and he said _I don’t blame you, Ronan_.  That it wasn’t your fault.  That you didn’t need to take _that_ on, too.  That he was sorry he didn’t give you the reaction you wanted, when you told him about Cabeswater.  But what did you expect?  — You tried to pull away, then.  He held on. —  That it wasn’t what you thought.  That hearing your best friend was responsible for bringing a huge, unbelievable magical entity to life…  One they’d walked in, one he’d pledged himself to…  That it was impossible, so the idea obviously took some getting used to.  _Okay?_

You remember the twinge of shame and disappointment you felt at _best friend_.  Such a strange thing to fixate on, and such a stupid one.  It’s true, of course it is.  He and Gansey _are_ your best friends, even if you do want so much more from Adam.

Of course you believed him.  What other choice did you have?

“Ronan,” he says.  And there’s something in the sound—in the unfettered chaos of the word that forces you to turn.  It sounds like he meant to say _please._

And you swear this time, now that you’re _looking_ …  You swear you see interest in his eyes. 

The gnarling void inside you gains more ground.  It’s effortless to imagine lunging across the gearshift in a moment of infinite stupidity.  It feels like someone’s holding your head underwater. 

You remember the taste of his name rolling off your tongue.

You want to taste his.

How long have you been missing that spark?  The heady blaze in his eyes.  _It doesn’t matter_.  Whether this is the first time, or the hundredth, the result’s the same.

Casual relationships have never once made a damn bit of sense to you.  That your thoughts are no longer tracking—it doesn’t mean you’ve suddenly changed your mind.  It’s just a sign of your sheer desperation. 

You’d take anything Adam would give you.  _Anything_.  You would let him tear you to shreds, set you on fire, and watch you burn—just to see the reflection of the pyre in his eyes.  You’d even hand him the gasoline.

Fuck, you’d light the match yourself if he asked you to.  It would be the farthest possible thing from meaningless for _you_.  It would burn you to ashes.  You’d let it.

_Come back to reality, Lynch.  Think this through_.

You have to keep this from swallowing you whole.

_Don’t be reckless, for once in your goddamned life.  Not about this._

It’s a razor-thin scrap of self-preservation that holds you back.

_He’s leaving_.  Just because he’s thought about it, doesn’t mean he _wants_ it.  Even if he does, it’s not going to mean anything to him.  All he’s ever wanted is to get out of this place.  He’s going to college, and he’s never coming back.  What are _you_ in the face of his hopes and dreams?  Everything he’s worked for.

As bad as this is—as bad as it _has_ been—the cycling between ravenous wanting, soul-crushing guilt, and hollow hope…  You know it’ll be infinitely worse if you get a taste of him, only for it be snatched away.

You don’t take the chance.

_A few more months_.  It’s a refrain the backbeat can’t drown out on the drive back to town.  You just have to make it until graduation.  Maybe until August.  Then you’ll probably never see him again.  The clean break will be that much cleaner if all you ever are is friends.  Surely you can fucking manage that.

For him. 

_For you_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fully expect much yelling, please don't disappoint :)
> 
> ETA: I couldn't resist the temptation to do some yellin' myself. [See here](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/137569413) for more discussion about my intentions/thoughts with this chapter, if you're interested!


	41. ask

**xli.**

Except you can’t.  You can’t stop thinking about him.  It was fucking delusional to pretend otherwise.  Because counting rationality and willpower among your strong suits was a notion so far divorced from reality, it’s laughable.  _Christ._

Sleep deprivation’s a half-step in a shit bucket away from rendering you a non-functional shell of a human.  You’re no stranger to insomnia, but this…  This is on a different plane of motherfucking existence.  Without sleep to save you, to clear your mind, to offer several hours of distraction, one hour, a handful of minutes, _just a few seconds—_

You’ve had plenty of time to think some real stupid shit.  Possibility is a wound you’ve worried for twelve hours straight.  The crystalline memory of that light in his eyes…

_Spark to fuse_.  And no amount of well-intentioned, reasonable doubt can tamp the blaze.  The flashpoint simmer trapped beneath your skin. 

You swear to fucking God, this uniform is chafing at the depths of your soul.  Just another noose, conspiring to choke the life from you bit by goddamn bit.  You told yourself you would quit today.

You told yourself a lot of things.

Three periods spent stealing sidelong glances at Adam.  They’re easily the most useful hours you’ve ever logged at this hellhole.  Probably you’re meant to feel ashamed, with how many times he catches you at it.  But there’s no room for embarrassment in the constant roil of _adamadamadamadam_. 

Every arched brow, every curve of his lips, every flushed cheek… it’s all coming together.

Because the simple truth is, Adam acts with intention.  His time, his money, his consideration—all carefully parceled out from years of necessity.  He’s never careless.  Never aimless.  Not when it matters.  But did he _intend_ for you to kiss him last night? 

The automatic _no_ feels too much like a lie.  But _yes_ is a revelation too great to fathom.

You’re not imagining it.  You can’t be.  Want is an onerous plague that’s haunted this secret from its roots—why would you fall into the trap of wishful thinking _now_?  No.  The heat of desire in his eyes, the subtle disappointment when you chose the safer path…  There’s something there. 

_Which just leaves you._  

Here.  Stuck. 

Gauging the chance for ephemeral happiness against the indescribable heartbreak that’s sure to follow.  It’s a gamble, because you know Adam better than he thinks.  When it’s all said and done, he’ll choose what he wants.  He’s fucking worked hard enough for it, after all.

And you’re not…  You’ll never be selfish enough to stand in his way.  You’ll let him go; that’s not the question.  The question: whether it will break you _both_ , in the end.  

Because you’d reckon yourself familiar with the jagged edge of disaster.  You’ve dashed yourself against the toothed rubble of self-destruction more times than you’d care to count.  Loss is a well-worn routine for you.  But if Adam really wants this—

If he’s harboring genuine feelings, and not just some fleeting desire to make you his…  If, against all odds, he wants you for _you_ —is it fair to him?   Going into this, knowing damn well he’ll choose between you and his bright future, eventually.  Knowing you won’t win.  That you would never _want_ to.

But might the mere act of choosing rip him apart?  You can live with the inevitability of yourself getting hurt.  You can’t say the same for Adam. 

The fabric of reality finds its final resting place in the halls of Aglionby Academy.  Beside the locker of one Adam Parrish, to the tune of an afternoon announcement you couldn’t remember a word of if you tried.  He _is_.  He’s fucking flirting with you, the sly son of a bitch.  This is real.  This is happening.  This could actually _happen_.

You think maybe your breath got buried alongside your flawed perception of what’s real.  This feels like a dream.  One of the good ones, a font of pure energy.  The kind you could draw a world from.  Raw possibility, prickling at your skin, at the blood in your veins, the air in your lungs.  The lucent electricity of magic, stripped down to its barest form— _hope_.

Declan’s visible foray into Aglionby territory is like crashing into that telephone pole all over again.  You feel your good mood slipping away in excruciating clarity.  It’s déjà vu of junior year.  Declan showing up unannounced, uninvited.  An ambush.  You’re cornered, hands balling into defensive fists.  Because seeing him for the second time inside a week, outside church grounds…  It means something.

Something, in this case likely resulting in one of you punching the other over the hood of the shittiest luxury car money can buy, in short order.  _His office_ , your ass.

Matthew’s installation in the backseat _could_ theoretically mean this is because of your birthday.  Reality bludgeons that exhaustion-induced ignorance with a simple reminder: you and Declan are scarcely on speaking terms, much less celebratory.  Not to mention, if Matthew had arranged a surprise, you would have already known about it.  He’s legendarily awful at keeping things from you.

Your second thought is that something’s gone horribly wrong.  Turns out that’s closer to the truth.

Everything Declan tells you makes a terrible kind of sense.  Curiosity along those lines has surfaced in the moments when you can’t shut your brain down.  Wondering about the relationship between your dad and all of you.  There was too much truth twisted through that vitriolic dream-Adam’s words for it to have been anything other than your subconscious, reasoning things out against your will.

Because Declan, tying up loose ends—it fits.  The thing he most shares with your father is his capacity to be a gifted liar.  A valuable talent, you suppose, in the magical black market.  If you’d bothered to give the matter half an ounce of thought, you should have never put it past him to be more entwined in this mess than you’d ever realized.

Your understanding of your solitary, calculating brother shifts beneath your feet.  Adjusting to accommodate this new information, a corrected history of events.  But that still doesn’t mean he can change your mind.

He’s wrong about you, about what he thinks you want.  Your future.  You know you can’t convince him, not right now.  He doesn’t have the patience to listen—and you don’t have the patience to try.

This is your home.  Your future.  The one you actually want.

And _Adam_ …

Abandoning the cusp of a possible _something_ now, not learning where it might lead?  Surrendering your last several months together.  No warning, no preparation.  Just the idea of it makes you physically ill.  Leaving him.  Forsaking Cabeswater.  Your mom.  _Gansey_.

Gansey, who needs you by his side every bit as much as you need him.  Gansey, who’s always been there for you, even during—especially during—your darkest times.  And Blue, who got dragged into this shit, you suspect, largely against her will.

They’re your friends.  Your family, found in circumstance.  You can’t leave things like this.  You can’t leave _them_.  That’s not who you are.

But you _can_ send Matthew to relative safety.  “Take Matthew,” you say, mind made up.  Leaving only the arrangements to be made.

The sharp bite of hope nags you relentlessly.  Chipping away piece after piece, breaking you down, eroding your better sense and returning your self-control in tatters.  It threatens to outmatch you the moment you see Adam standing in your kitchen.  You can’t tear your eyes from his.

_Not the time or the place, Lynch_. 

You shove it down, again and again and again.  Smothering the wild impulse until a catastrophic necessity to do _something_ completely overtakes you.

In the end, there is only this:

You’re in a room with a beautiful boy, and he holds your heart in his hands. 

Love spills from your bones, crowds out the air, threatens to choke you both.  And it feels like you’re on the verge of something terrible. 

You’re stuffed with fear, and you can feel the heat in his eyes, and you’re so _damn_ tired of trying to hold it back. 

You reach for that hopeful part of you, and put it on the bed beside him.  You’re trembling, and there’s a prayer on your lips, and he takes it in his mouth. 

He can decide where to leave it, you’ll give him the space.  Quiet, and safe, and without expectations.  You move to leave, silencing the part of you that wants so badly to stay. 

And your eyes surrender to the inescapable gravity of his.  He says nothing.  You say nothing.  Your heart says volumes.  Loud, and insistent, and soaring, soaring, soaring.

It gives you the strength to turn, to put one foot in front of the other, to keep your promise.

To have faith. 

And for the first time, you think you might discover:  he’s got the answer you’re looking for.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The kiss scene is heavily influenced by Richard Siken's _You Are Jeff_.
> 
> *sweats nervously* I really hope ya'll liked it!
> 
> If you would be so kind, I'd love for you to share some of your favorite lines/parts in the comments <3


	42. answer

**xlii.**

“Adam?”  The word is a wild ruin, wrenched free from the thorns shackling your nerves.  It’s all you can bring yourself to say.  You’ve already begged the question.  Anything more would be unfair.

You know he needs time to think about this.  To wrap his careful consideration around the possibility, turn it inside out, and weigh it against his other wants and obligations.  To decide whether it—whether _you_ —might be worth it. 

The wait is going to kill you, probably.

You’re not going to force this conversation.  You told yourself you wouldn’t. 

You _won’t._

But _Jesus shit Mary fuck_ , this is torture.  Here you are, sweating pure inner turmoil…  And Adam, the asshole, would apparently rather play lookie loo with the goddamn deer than acknowledge your existential crisis.  

He’s situated at the edge of your vision, his elegant face twisted in thought.  Palpable self-negotiation leaks into the space between you.  The anxiety it breeds has your logic in a stranglehold.

How many minutes have you lost to this clamoring silence? 

Now that you’re alone, he won’t look you in the eyes.  And here you thought…  His nearness.  The warmth.  His smiles.  The jokes.  His support.  The understanding and shared concern.  _A night for truth_. 

This staggering hesitation paints a truth, all right: _he’s talked himself out of it_.  Now he’s trying to find the words to retreat.  Gathering the fractured pieces of an explanation to pulverize your hopes.

That’s… you wouldn’t call it _okay_ , exactly.  But you were well-versed in the possibility from the start.  You’ll bury that piece of your heart back inside you, where it belongs.

You’ll live.

He isn’t angry.

You can work past this.

At least you’ll stay friends.

At least you _tried._

And the knowing is better than having never sought an answer.  Than the raw wound of possibility, festering for months.  _Years_ , maybe _._   At least…

You can’t regret the happiness that gasped through your bones when you kissed him.  A shared secret, made that much lighter for the bearing.

At least, if nothing else, you’ll always have _that_.

Silence stretches over the chilly night, spinning it into something cold and foreign.

You’ve made up your mind.  Resolved to put the question to bed; him out of his misery.  You’ll tell him you understand.  That he need not smash his brain to bits, searching for a way to say he doesn’t want this with you.  That he can forget it ever happened, if that’s what he needs to do.

_(You won’t forget.  You never will.)_

No sooner do you open your mouth, than Adam shoves his own against it.  And— _Jesus H. McFuck_ —thought flatlines into a blissful, static haze.  Of mouths, of lips, of tongues.  Of hands and fingers.  Of stomachs, of ribs, and _skin, skin, skin_. 

Wood tears into your back.  The annoyance might resettle reality, but you could hardly give less of a shit.  No inconvenience is worth the risk of ruining whatever magic’s got Adam bending you over the railing with his mouth in the first place.  You ignore it for as long as you can.

But the porch won’t cooperate.  It wails out an imploring creak.  You grunt then, carefully nudging Adam backward.  He goes easily— _too easily_ —letting you straighten the uncomfortable curve of your spine.  You’re betting on a bruise tomorrow, but it’s the least of your concerns now.

The most pressing:  Adam’s transparent dismay.  _Fuck_.  You hate everything about his expression.  He looks stricken.  And while you knew it was _possible_ this would all be some terrible mistake, you could have done without the confirmation.  You didn’t want to see it, written in creased lines of apology.

“I’m s—”  _Didn’t want to hear it_.

“Don’t,” you bite out.  “Don’t you dare fucking apologize.”  This time, you _do_ wish he hadn’t kissed you.  Because it’s categorically unfair for him to have devoured you, only to decide he didn’t like the taste.

Confusion rewrites his remorse.  “But you pushed me away?”  There’s a hand at your elbow, a gentle gesture matching the tenderness in his eyes.  The quiet yearning.

You understand, then, that he’s not sorry for _what_ he did.  He’s only sorry because he thinks he overstepped.  Soft exasperation warms your heart. 

“Idiot,” you mutter.  “You know, I’d probably let you break my back.  But my porch doesn’t deserve that kind of abuse, man.”  Crimson stains his cheeks as he puts together the compromising position you just pulled out of.

In hindsight, embarrassment can’t be the best route to Adam’s mouth.  And God, is that where you want to be.  You rack your mind for something to say.  Anything to stop him pulling away in a fit of awkward pique.  Why did your own house have to turn against you?

But this Adam is full of surprises.  A ridiculously attractive smirk stretches across his face.  His hands seek skin at your waist.  He leans in, close enough for you to feel the heat of his breath against your ear.  A shiver works its way down your spine, one that has nothing to do with the cold.  “Should we go inside, then?” he breathes.  “Endanger some furniture instead of the architecture?”

He steps away then, the loss a shock of disappointment.  You suddenly have zero fucks left to give about the structural stability of your porch.  His lips present too tantalizing an opportunity.  You can’t look away. 

He takes another step.  And another.  Inching backwards until he’s reached the door, eyes locked on yours.  It takes your brain an embarrassingly long time to catch up.  To remember you’re supposed to follow him.

The crooked smile he wears as he leads you through your home is a sin.  The hand he casually brushes along the wall, public enemy number one.  You don’t make it to the living room. 

You snatch at his wrist, dragging him to a halt.  Now that you’ve felt the press of his mouth against yours, you need it like oxygen.  You’ve been holding your breath too long.  Adam’s eyebrow lifts as you step closer.

Then he’s in motion.  A series of movements too fast to track and he’s reversed your positions.  And he _slams_ you into the wall.  He catches the _what the fuck_ off your tongue before it can escape.  And, _God._

He kisses like he’s dying.  Like you’re the only thing that can save him.  Desperate, and hungry, and unrelenting.

You’re the one that’s dying.  You don’t know how you’re meant to survive this.  But you’ll relish every second of it.

“Eager much, Parrish?” you gasp when his lips trail from your mouth to your neck.

“Fuck you,” he responds with a smile.  “I’ve been wanting to do this for months.”

 _Months?_   He doesn’t give you the time to digest that information, dragging you down the hall without warning.

Time ceases to exist in any recognizable form.  Adam’s surging for your mouth again.  Your knees are buckling against the couch cushion.  He’s climbing on top of you, and _Jesus God_.

He kisses like a force of nature.  Like it’s inevitable.  Like you’re just along for the ride.  And that’s fucking fine.  God, that’s fine, because you never want him to stop.  _You_ never want to stop.

Everywhere Adam touches, he’s leaving an inferno in his wake.  He’s a forest fire.  Overwhelming.  Too, too much—and yet somehow you desperately want for more.  

He’s tearing you apart in the best way possible.  Pure physical fatality.  Like he wants to burn himself into you so deep, he’ll never leave.  You don’t know how to tell him he already is.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

It takes you several seconds too long to string his words together.  “Like what?”  _Like you’re losing every square inch of your shit?_   The answer to that should be obvious as hell—you clearly goddamn are.

“Like you’re going to wake up.”  He leans his forehead against yours.  Your eyes slip closed.  “This isn’t a dream.”

And fuck, you know that.  Your dreams never let you have anything like this.  You never _let_ them. 

“I know,” you respond, because it’s the simplest truth to tell.  And he accepts it for what it is. 

Eventually the edge wears off his hunger, leaving it to simmer radiant and warm.  You’re lying against him where he’s sprawled over the cushions, body strategically arranged to shield the unruly situation in your pants.  Hardly fair, how it does nothing to hide his. 

Long fingers play at the short fuzz of your hair, running along the soft grain.  His other hand makes a home of your ribcage.  You’re more content than you’ve felt in years. 

That you’re probably about to ruin it makes a twisted kind of sense.  But you have to know.  “ _Months_ , huh?”

“Hmm?”

“You said you’ve wanted this for months.”

You don’t know what you’re expecting.  Maybe sarcasm.  Him telling you it was a figure of speech.  That you shouldn’t have taken him seriously, because in what world could he have meant that literally?

What you get is a simple _yeah_.

“What stopped you?” you ask, because you’re obviously some kind of masochist.  “You never said anything.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice at wanting things I never thought I could have.”

And damn if that doesn’t hit you like a kick in the nutsack.  “ _Parrish._ ”

He blows out a breath.  “I didn’t know.  I mean…  I think I might have, in a way?  But, I wanted to be sure.  Completely sure.  And I didn’t really have anything to compare it against, you know?”

You’re pretty sure you don’t.  Don’t know what he’s getting at at all, actually.  He didn’t know _what_?  That he liked you?  Does he _still_ not know?  And how can he possibly quantify that as _months_?

“I’ve never… had… friends as close as you guys before.  I’ve never been this tangled up in other people’s lives.  I mean...  How are you supposed to know when you’ve stepped over the line between:  this person is attractive, this person is my best friend—and putting two and two together and wanting more?”

 _When they’re all you can think about.  When your desire for them is a scalpel fucking digging out all your insides.  When you want and you want until you just can’t stand it anymore.  When you’ve fallen terribly in love with them and there’s no turning back_. 

And suddenly, you think you might understand the problem after all.  Adam’s had less experience with love than anyone should have to suffer through.  “Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_.”  You can hear the narrow smile in his voice.

“I just wanted,” he swallows.  “If I was wrong, what was the sense in hurting myself and making things awkward between us?  And if I was right?  I wanted…  I _needed_ to be sure first.  I knew better than to jerk you around.  I was never gonna try and do that.”

“I thought you’d figured it out.  How I felt.”

“I thought I had too.  But you threw me when I accidentally…  When I almost kissed you.  Thought you didn’t want anything to do with me, after.  That maybe you just liked looking, and that was where it ended, full stop.  I felt like such an idiot for wanting it to be more.”

_What in fuck’s name?_

Propping yourself on your elbows, you interrupt him.  “Back the fuck up.  When you _what_?  Enlighten me, Parrish, for the love of all fuck, what the shit it is you’re talking about.”

He goggles at you.  Eyes wide and suspicious like you just asked him if water was wet.  “The barn?” he says, like that’s supposed to help.

You just stare.  “When you started acting really weird around me?  I was worried you hated me, there for a while.”  _Surely, he’s not talking about…_   “Jesus, Ronan.  Seriously?” 

 _Seriously_ , the blankness in your face replies.

“With the paint?  Us wrestling?  When I pinned you on the ground?  You looked so happy.  So—  God.  I don’t know.”  Adam’s hands drop to his sides.  You desperately miss their warmth.  He’s retreating in on himself, and you hate it. 

“I thought…  I thought it looked like you wanted me to kiss you more than anything.”  _I did_ , you think.  _If I had known it was an option…_   

He spits out a self-deprecating chuckle.  “No idea why my brain went with that.”  _Because you were right_.  “It was obviously wrong.”  _No, damn it._

“But I almost did.  Thankfully, it picked up on the panic in your face before I could.”  _Oh God._   “And I realized, then, that I’d almost made a terrible mistake.”  _Fucking damn it._   “Then you were throwing me off you like you couldn’t get away from me fast enough…  And I was just so glad I hadn’t.”

“Jesus fucking _hell-shit Christ_.”  You bury your face against Adam.

“Then you still acted like you wanted nothing to do with me.  Which _really_ sucked, by the way.  Anyhow, I reckoned I had to’ve been wrong the whole time.”  He’s running a hand up and down your arm.  Something to distance himself from this conversation, but not from you.  “I thought, maybe, later… when things were so easy.  But I didn’t want to be wrong again.”

“Fuck,” you tell his shirt.  And you stew in the suffocating silence of how you’ve misunderstood _everything_.  How you pushed him away, for fucking no goddamn reason at all.  Making you both suffer under the weight of your own stupidity.  “ _Fuck._ ” 

“Ronan?” he asks gently.  You realize, then, that you’ve got fabric balled up in your fists.  A sound of sheer frustration escapes you, laced with a side of inadvertent whine you’ll probably never live down.

“Lynch.  Come on.  You just had my tongue in your mouth.  You can talk to me.”

“I didn’t know you were into guys, fuckhead,” you say miserably, words muffled against his chest.  “I thought you…  I thought _I_ …  _Fuck!_   I didn’t want to do that to you.  I never wanted to be _that_ to you.”

Two fingers hook your chin, pushing you to look at him.  The sheer understanding you find there will never cease to amaze you.  So many of the twists and turns of your mind, he knows how to navigate unprompted.  And what a gift that is, when you have so much fucking trouble putting them into words.  He smiles.  “Guess we were both idiots, huh?”

“Speak for yourself, Parrish.  I’m a goddamn genius,” you retort.

“That right?  Why aren’t you kissing me then?”

Let it never be said you’re one to back down from a challenge.

His hand takes up residence at your back.  Trailing back and forth, circling.  His fingers keep catching on the hem of your shirt.  A thoughtful little noise escapes him.  “Take your shirt off,” he says.  No inflection, just instruction.

“Christ, Parrish.  Moving a little fast, aren’t we?” you quip, even as you’re reaching behind your head and tugging at the fabric.

He flushes instantly.  “Not…  Not like _that_ , asshole.  I just wanna see your tattoo.”

“Relax, I’m just fucking with you.  But if you ask for pants to come off, we’re _both_ gonna have a problem.”

His face gets redder, somehow.  You watch as his eyes dart to your jeans for a brief, torturous second.  Then you settle against him, lowering yourself so he can get a good look at your back.

His softened callouses trace the ink across your skin.  A wing, there.  A hook, there.  A winding path, there.  You can’t keep your breath in check when his fingers pass over the knobs of your spine.  He’s definitely going to think you’re insane, but death feels imminent. 

Just because you’re fairly fucking sure there’s _no reason_ this should feel _this_ intimate—that damn sure doesn’t mean it doesn’t.  Goddamn, it does.  It does, it does, _it does_.

“ _Unguibus et rostro_ ,” he murmurs. 

 _Claws and beak_.  It’s perfect, you think.  Fitting.  The moment he speaks the words, you’re contemplating their addition to your tattoo.  Maybe you’ll ask Adam to write them. 

Love and hope flow through you in equal measure.  You bring his other hand to your mouth, placing a reverent kiss there.  And you don’t feel tired anymore.  You feel _alive_.

An hour or a day or a week or a month passes.  Time isn’t something you can dedicate a shit to give about, when he’s here with you like this.  The magic of this night could go on forever.

At some point, Adam’s fallen asleep.  Sprawled sideways across the enormous cushions, you’re tangled together.  His head making a pillow of your chest.  Soft breath billowing across your skin.  Some time in the next hour, you’ll wake him, inform him that under no uncertain terms is he fucking sleeping on your couch, and herd him up to Declan’s room.  But for now…

For now, you’ll stay put and hold your future close.  He’s warm and solid in your arms.  Everything you could have ever imagined and so, _so_ much more.

You think, maybe…  Maybe the future’s looking pretty bright, after all.

 

+   +   +

 

 _You’re in a car with a beautiful boy,_  
_and he won’t tell you that he loves you,  
_ _but he loves you._

— Richard Siken

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well guys, it's been a wild ride! I hope sincerely it did not disappoint.
> 
> Thank you all so much for sticking with me and for your support. I absolutely mean it when I say that you made this story happen.
> 
> As ever, feel free to drop me a comment here or on tumblr. I respond to them, and every single one matters so much <3 Also if you liked it, please feel free to share! I'm actually pretty proud of this for once :)

**Author's Note:**

> Yell at me on [tumblr](http://moreraventhanothers.tumblr.com)


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